[Myrddin]

Our solution was a signed contract to employees if they fubar the system we wipe it out no questions asked and don't save any data. And like someone else said it takes 10 minutes to ghost it back to how it was when they got it.

I would require the IT group to repay the development hours destroyed by an indiscriminate act of "ghosting" a new image without any attempt to recover development files from the hard disk. The bill would be at customer billing rates for the value of the employee's labor that was destroyed. Help desk labor hours are about 10x lower than most of the software developers in my organization. Any late penalties for schedules misses caused would also be assessed to the IT organization that destroys the valuable data as an expedient use of their time. Loaded developer rates run $170 to $250 per hour.

[HairOfTheDog]

I would require the IT group to repay the development hours destroyed by an indiscriminate act of "ghosting" a new image without any attempt to recover development files from the hard disk.

No kidding! I couldn't believe I read that. If the employee doesn't "own" the computers or the work product on them, IT doesn't either. That work product belongs to the company and is not IT's to delete.

[technochick99]

Or they could save all work files to a server, and have very little on their desktops/laptops.