Can we deploy system images to Windows PCs with the built-in NTBackup program instead of using Symantec's Norton Ghost?

You can create a complete backup on one system and restore it to another machine with the same hardware configuration with NTBackup.

The second machine will have the same machine name and network settings as the original, so you need to restart the system, rename it under the Computer Name tab in the Properties dialog under My Computer and restart again.

Ghost is not that expensive and is designed to deploy system images; however, if you go with the NTBackup approach, you need to build up your initial system image and create a full system backup, including the System State in the "What to Restore" dialog in the Restore Wizard.

When you get to the "Completing the Restore Wizard" screen, click the Advanced button and accept the default setting of "Restore files to: Original Location" and click Next. On the "How to Restore" screen that follows, be sure to check the "Replace Existing Files" option rather than the default "Leave existing files" setting. After the restore operation is complete, reboot the system, rename it and reboot again.

While this approach can work, you may find that systems imaged this way exhibit some strange behavior, because files used by the system during the restore may not have been replaced. This is one reason a system-imaging utility such as Ghost is probably a better choice.