Fast & Free: Desktop Data Migration Using USMT

Brad EngleJanet Keener

Year 1 – 487 units

• Imaged at the desktop with DVDs, vendor-supplied migration utility. No consistency. Captured music brought from home. Learned a lesson from that.

Years 2-5

• Imaged at the factory now. Still using vendor-supplied migration utility, still no consistency.

Year 6

• Still imaging at factory, but they have a new utility. Slow, inconsistent, cumbersome, no real-time, on-the-fly edits to the script.

Year 7

• Things changed…

Year 7

• Factory imaging, but vendor has NO utility that would migrate from XP to Windows 7.

History

• Year 1 - 487 units Year 5 - 511• Year 2 - 415 units Year 6 - 445• Year 3 - 317 units Year 7 - 351• Year 4 - 142 units Year 8 - 128• Year 9 - ~470 units

What changed?Janet says:

• Where did the idea come from?– Necessity – no cost-effective 3rd party utility– Current vendor had no solution

Brads says:

• Boss said, “Figure it out! You have 2 weeks.”• Primary idea came from TechNet, using

“Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7”

How we began

• Research, research, research• Reviewed Altiris, Norton Ghost Console, some

freeware applications. NONE were cost-effective, all were complex or lacked features

• USMT kept appearing in white papers

• Primary idea came from TechNet• v 4.0 Included for free with The Windows

Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7 (We had been using it since it came out but was not aware of this feature)

• Was a straight forward, easily modified solution that was controlled by a few xml files

The Files

• Config.xml• MigApp.xml• MigUser.xml• MigDocs.xml• Custom.xml

• Config.xml• Created by running scanstate.exe /genconfig

on the source PC• Used to control what system settings are

copied from the old computer to the new computer

• Must ensure that all apps are installed so genconfig can create a complete inventory

Config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> - <Configuration> <Applications /> <Documents /> - <WindowsComponents>- <component displayname="gadgets" migrate="no" ID="gadgets"> <component displayname="gadgets\sticky notes" migrate="no" ID="gadgets\sticky notes" /> </component> <component displayname="WCF-NonHTTP-Activation" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/wcf-nonhttp-activation/wcf-

nonhttp-activation/settings"/> <component displayname="TSPortalWebPart" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/tsportalwebpart/tsportalwebpart/

settings" /> <component displayname="WCF-HTTP-Activation" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/wcf-http-activation/wcf-http-

activation/settings" /> <component displayname="WindowsSearchEngine" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/windowssearchengine/

windowssearchengine/settings" /> <component displayname="Microsoft-Windows-themecpl" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/microsoft-windows-

themecpl/microsoft-windowsthemecpl/settings" /> - <component displayname="Tablet PC Settings" migrate="no" ID="tablet_pc_settings">- <component displayname="Accessories" migrate="no" ID="tablet_pc_settings\tablet_pc_accessories"> <component displayname="Microsoft-Windows-TabletPC-Journal" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/microsoft-windows-

tabletpc-journal/microsoft-windows-tabletpc-journal/settings" /> </component>- <component displayname="Input Panel" migrate="no" ID="tablet_pc_settings\tablet_pc_input_panel"> <component displayname="Microsoft-Windows-TabletPC-InputPanel" migrate="no" ID="http://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/cmi/microsoft-

windows-tabletpc-inputpanel/microsoft-windows-tabletpc-inputpanel/settings" /> </component>

• With all the No, then why have the file?

• Only place to have error control, hardlink control, and profile control

Error Control

• USMT will fail on:– locked or corrupt files– locked or corrupt registry keys

• Can be overridden by specifying win32 error codes in the <errorcontrol> section

<ErrorControl> <fileError> <nonFatal errorCode="33">* [*]</nonFatal> <fatal errorCode="any">C:\Users\* *]</fatal> </fileError> <registryError> <nonFatal errorCode="5">* [*]</nonFatal> </registryError>

</ErrorControl>

• Hardlink control - used for keeping a profile on the local hard drive when an in-place refresh or upgrade is performed

• Profile control - when unpacking the profile you can change permissions, change domains, etc.

• miguser.xml - define folders, files and file types to migrate. Essentially the “profile” copy

• By default it will copy everything in the user’s profile as well as files with a specified extension

• Extensions copied by default: .qdf, .qsd, .qel, .qph, .doc*, .dot*, .rtf, .mcw, .wps, .scd, .wri, .wpd, .xl*, .csv, .iqy, .dqy, .oqy, .rqy, .wk*, .wq1, .slk, .dif, .ppt*, .pps*, .pot*, .sh3, .ch3, .pre, .ppa, .txt, .pst, .one*, .vl*, .vsd, .mpp, .or6, .accdb, .mdb, .pub

<component type="Documents" context="System"> <displayName _locID="miguser.userdata">User Data</displayName> <role role="Data"> <rules> <include> <objectSet> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.qdf]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.qsd]", "Fixed")</script>

component type="Documents" context="User"> <displayName _locID="miguser.desktop">Desktop</displayName> <paths> <path type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%</path> </paths> <role role="Settings"> <detects> <detect> <condition>MigXmlHelper.DoesObjectExist("File","%CSIDL_DESKTOP%")</condition> </detect> </detects> <rules> <include filter='MigXmlHelper.IgnoreIrrelevantLinks()'> <objectSet> <pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%\* [*]</pattern> </objectSet> </include> <merge script="MigXmlHelper.DestinationPriority()"> <objectSet> <pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP% [desktop.ini]</pattern> <pattern type="File">%CSIDL_DESKTOP%\* [*]</pattern> </objectSet> </merge> </rules> </role> </component>

• MigDocs.xml – Very similar to the miguser.xml. Only real difference is it migrates shared files

• Important – Do NOT use the MigDocs.xml and the MigUser.xml at the same time

custom.xml

• Allows any files not covered in the other xml files to be copied

• Can copy registry keys, files, settings• Can use Mutual Exclude commands– Mutual Excludes transcend all xml files and cannot

be negated. This is the only value that has this power

custom.xml

EXCLUDES Code sample:

<displayName>Deny</displayName> <role role="Data"> <rules> <unconditionalExclude> <objectSet> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.divx]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.zip]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.exe]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.msi]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.iso]",

"Fixed")</script>…

custom. xml

INCLUDE CODE SAMPLE:

<role role="Data"> <rules> <include>

<objectSet> pattern type="File">c:\*[*]</pattern> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.dic]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.pst]", "Fixed")</script> <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.nk2]", "Fixed")</script></objectSet>

</include>

Scanstate

• Scanstate is the command line that actually launches USMT to do the migration.

Scanstate Switches

• Some helpful switches:– /ui: user to be migrated. I wrote it to supply the

primary user. You can specify all users, currently logged in, etc. Very powerful

– /ue: excludes specified users– /efs: decrypts files & moves them to TARGET

system

Scanstate Switches

– /localonly: DO NOT go scan all those huge network drives!

– /config: specifies that you have a configuration file to use.

– /i: an include statement that says you have additional XML files to control the behavior of the migration.

– /o: overwrites any existing data on the target drive.

Execution

• set /p name= Machine name?

• set /p user= Username?

• del /q/f c:\oitdriver

• scanstate \\etsu%name%\c$\migration\mystore /vsc /ue:*\*/ui:etsu\%user% /efs:decryptcopy /localonly /config:config.xml /i:miguser.xml /i:custom.xml /v:13 /l:scan.log /o /listfiles:c:\temp\copylist.txt

Compression

• In our experiences, we’ve seen about a 2:1 compression ratio. If the utility packaged 4 GB, it would transfer about 2 GB. That’s what Microsoft says, too.

Unpack the .mig file

• On TARGET machine, just run usmt.mig file created by the process.

• The Easy Transfer Wizard included in Windows 7 begins, and the data is unpackaged to the appropriate location on the new drive.

• Example – 1.7 GB packaged up. .88GB transferred in about 4 minutes. Easy Transfer complete unpacking in about 3 minutes. FAST!

Yippee

• Even if the user’s account has never logged into the TARGET system, this utility will generate the profile and place the files appropriately.

• If you get an error 36, running the mig.bat file, the profile on the SOURCE system is corrupt.

Next, we hope to…

• Explore the restorestate command & options, and how that can be integrated into drive imaging/re-imaging.

• Research Error code 36 and ways to overcome that (temp profile being migrated)

Questions?Comments?

brad@etsu.edujanet@etsu.eduwww.etsu.edu\oit\userservices\fcf2011.pptx