Through various machinations of those above me, I have recently
been "reassigned" (really just had half of my time reallocated), and
I am now responsible for a small "mobile lab" of 16 notebook PCs
(Dells).  This is a little outside my normal realm of experience, but
well within my capabilities.  General uses are for administering an
exam, teaching the usage of a specialized program, or providing
interactive documentation for a laboratory procedure.

This is the first time I've ever had this kind of control over a group
of computers that didn't belong to specific people.  I'm wondering
if anyone can recommend a good method whereby I can alter the
contents of one of them (Windows updates, antivirus updates, 
the addition of programs, placing files on the desktop, etc.) and
have the changes propagate automagically onto the other 15.

They are all identical Dell D505s, which poses a small problem
in that Dell's network drivers do not play well with others.  This
makes doing this over a network difficult.  I really don't want to
burn three or five CDs (or even a DVD or two) for every little
change I make, but it wouldn't be a terrible inconvenience to, say,
connect a USB external hard drive, boot to it, and load an image
onto the laptop.  After all, I could be elsewhere while the image
loads then.

So, does anyone have any sage advice on this matter?

Mike H.
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