A method and system for imaging a workstation (or other device) and then associating that image with a specific device are disclosed. The present invention enables an administrator to take an image of a basic workstation (with minimum or no applications) and then when the image is downloaded to the workstation, the service may look into a Directory and download with the image the set of files associated with an Application Object that has been associated with the image in the Directory. Another embodiment of the present invention further provides a method and system for applying an image to a workstation that had never been imported into the tree. A rules-based system may be implemented to enable one or more workstations that are booting to find the image and have it applied.