Imaging Windows PCs in 2026

Hello Sysadmin crew!

Since MDT has been fully deprecated, I'm looking for a good new way to image our machines. I've seen a fair amount of discussion on this, but I don't feel like I have a clean answer, so I'm hoping for a little hand-holding.

Need the process to:

1. Install Windows (ideally pull the latest build automatically, but it's okay if I have to babysit the .iso) 2. Install computer's standard drivers 3. Join our domain 4. Disable default admin 5. Install some software

Considerations:

* We don't have access to Intune * USB flash drive or PXE are both fine * Needs to be free or cheap * Our fleet is \~100 endpoints at main office, although it looks like I might have to start helping with this at remote offices, which would probably put a point in PXE's hat * Since I've been using MDT, I've gotten used to a bare-metal OS deploy. I still think that's the best method for refreshing machines, but I'm open to hear other methods that aren't full ground-up

Hit me with your best recommendations!

ETA:

Okay, to clarify because it's dumb: we are 365 customers, and our tenant has access to Intune. However, corporate has not granted us permission to Intune (or Entra... or Exchange, or 365 Admin), yet we are fully responsible for managing our own devices.

So my hands are artificially tied. Yes, I've made the case for it several times.