The Apple Network Assistant has a Copy Hard Drive feature that can be used to copy an entire hard disk to client computers. Files and applications on the desktop of the administration computer do not get copied to the client computers. Likewise, items on the desktop of the client computers are not replaced or deleted.

This is the expected behavior. Apple Network Assistant is designed to leave any items on the desktop alone, both on the client and on the administration computer. There are a couple of situations where this functionality comes in useful:

• On the client, when there are things you want to keep safe and do not want replaced or erased when you copy the entire hard disk.
• On the server, when there are just a few of things you do not want to copy to the client systems (administration applications, for example).