Installing the Windows Recovery Console gives you the ability to run repairs on NT based operating systems without having to boot up to an installation CD. It can be very useful to make this part of your standard application rollout, especially if you have remote and/or laptop users to support. Be aware there can be issues if you also use Sysprep. Details can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308402
More details of the capabilities and limitations can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314058
To install the Recovery Console, open a command prompt and switch directories to your i386 folder (which, in best practices, should also be included on your image - see http://itninja.com/blog/view/autologon-during-unattended-nt-installation9), and type the following command:
winnt32.exe /cmdcons
To install it without user intervention, add a /unattend switch.
When the Recovery Console is installed, an unfortunate side effect is that the boot.ini is modified such that there is a 30 second countdown at bootup where the user to choose between bootup options. This can be modified from the command line with the following:
bootcfg /timeout [desired_value]
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