Mastering Windows Vista for Business Professionals
By Mark Minasi and John Paul Mueller
The following excerpt is from chapter two of Mastering Windows Vista for Business Professionals, entitled "Installing Vista."
Check out the rest of this chapter, Installing Vista.
Migrating Settings Using the Microsoft Windows User State
Migration Tool (USMT)
USMT provides significantly more flexibility when transferring user information than using Windows
Easy Transfer. Of course, you pay for that extra flexibility with significantly greater complexity.
Consequently, if Windows Easy Transfer does the job for you, then you'll want to skip this section. You can download USMT here .
Unlike Windows Easy Transfer, USMT is actually a command-line tool that you can add to
everything from batch files to the task scheduler. Given the right command-line switches, you can
use it to back up all of your system settings and data on a given interval. Of course, the main use
for this utility is to move user settings and data from one machine to another, even if you must use
an intermediate share on a network server to do it. Here are the command-line options for the
USMT utility that stores the settings, ScanState.
/compress[+ | -] Enable or disable compression of the settings files. The default setting enables
settings file compression.
/localonly Use only local drives for the scan. This setting overrides any settings you provide
as part of an INF file.
/l:<log file> Place the log file in a particular location. The default location is the USMT folder.
/v:<verbosity> Define the amount of information that appears in the log file. Adding more
information provides additional details about the scanning process, but also increases the time
and resources required to perform the scan. The verbosity levels are as follow:
| Level 1 |
Enables verbose output. |
| Level 4 |
Enables error and status output. |
| Level 5 |
Enables verbose and status output. |
| Level 8 |
Enables error output to a debugger. |
| Level 9 |
Enables verbose output to a debugger. |
| Level 12 |
Enables error and status output to a debugger. |
| Level 15 |
Enables verbose, status, and debugger output. |
/progress:<log> Defines the location of the progress log. The progress log informs you about
the status of the scan.
/all Scan all of the users on a particular machine instead of just the current user. This setting
lets you perform one scan per machine no matter how many users the machine supports. You
must have administrator privileges to use this command-line switch.
/user:<user> Scan a particular user on the target machine. ScanState normally scans the currently
logged on user. This command-line switch lets you scan other users. You must have
administrator privileges to use this command-line switch. ScanState lets you use multiple /user
switches on the same command line.
/ui:<timeout> Exclude any users whose accounts are inactive within the timeout value. This
feature lets you get rid of any old accounts that aren't used on the current machine. The timeout
value can include a number of days or appear as an actual date in Year/Month/Day format.
/i:<input inf> Use the specified INF file to configure ScanState. The INF file can define every
element of the scan process. The following command-line switches augment and modify INF
file use. Normally, ScanState enables all of these switches. However, if you use any of them on
the command line, ScanState automatically disables the features you don't specify.
/x Remove the default migration groups from the scan. This command-line switch focuses the search on the target machine and the specified user. It applies to the [Administrator Scripts] and [Administrator User Scripts] sections of the INF file, along with the Copy This
State and Copy This User State settings.
/u Perform a full scan of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. Use this setting to ensure that you
have all settings for every application you have loaded on your system.
/s Scan all of the system settings and applications. This command-line switch refers to the
[System Settings], [Applications], and [User Settings] sections of the INF file.
/f Use file rules during the scan. This command-line switch refers to the [Files and Folders],
[Administrator Scripts], and [Administrator User Scripts] sections of the INF file.
/c Continue the scan process even after encountering a nonfatal error. ScanState always fails
after a fatal error.
/p Generate a space estimate file (USMTsize.txt). You must specify /compress- option to use
this feature. The resulting space estimate is for an uncompressed scan.
/o Overwrite any existing store data. If you don't specify this command-line switch and the
selected data store (directory or other share) contains data, ScanState will fail. Use this option
only when you know you want to overwrite the existing data.
/r:<count> Specify the failure retry count. The default setting of 3 works in most cases. However,
you might want to increase this value in environments where you can't count on a good
connection to the target machine. On the other hand, you can save scanning time by reducing the
value in environments where you know the connection is completely reliable.
/w:<timeout> Specify the delay, in seconds, when retrying after a failure. The default setting
is 1 second. However, you might want to increase this value when the connection between systems
isn't only unreliable, but the interruption is long lasting.
/efs:<option> Specify choice of USMT behavior for Encrypted File System (EFS) files. The following
list defines the standard behaviors.
abort ScanState automatically fails when it encounters an EFS. This is the default behavior.
skip ScanState skips the EFS partition and continues with any other data stores that appear
in the processing list.
decryptcopy Decrypts the EFS data and stores it in an unencrypted state. This option can
fail even when the files are accessible because Windows encrypts files using the user's credentials.
If you're trying to save the data for another user, the scan can fail because you don't
have the credentials required to decrypt the data.
copyraw Copies the EFS data in the encrypted state. This option can backfire, in some cases,
because the credentials that Windows generates for a particular user can differ between installations.
When this problem occurs, the data becomes permanently inaccessible. The only way
to avoid problems when using this technique is to migrate the EFS certificates. The "Saving
Settings with the User Setting Migration Toolkit (USMT)" section of Chapter 39 contains additional
details on working with EFS.
<store path> Specify the path to the data store. You can use a local drive or save the data to a
network drive using the UNC format.
/test Places USMT in a test mode so that you can perform tasks such as verifying that an INF
works as expected. You can also use this command-line switch to verify that a scan won't fail
due to a lack of permissions.
Using the ScanState utility to save local settings usually means relying on the command line
rather than an INF file (an option discussed in detail in Chapter 39). For example, if you want to
save the settings for the local drive to a local data store, you might use the following command line.
ScanState D:\MySettings /All /LocalOnly /V:5 /L:D:\MySettings\Scan.log
These settings create a store in the D:\MySettings folder for all users by scanning only the local
drives. The scan information appears in D:\MySettings\Scan.log and has a verbosity level of 5.
After you install a new operating system and its associated applications, you use the LoadState
utility to restore the settings that you saved using the ScanState utility. The following commandline
switches work the same as the ScanState utility.
/compress[+ | -]
/l:<log file>
/v:<verbosity>
/progress:<log>
/all
/user:<user>
/i:<input inf>
/x
/u
/s
/f
/r:<count>
/w:<timeout>
<store path>
/c
/test
The LoadState utility also has a number of specialized command-line switches. The following
list describes them.
/ix Don't use Scanstate INFs. This command-line switch lets you customize the restoration
process. For example, you might only want to restore some users. You can't use this feature on
a compressed data store.
/md:<mapping> Maps the user to a new domain. When the data store contains multiple
domains, you specify the old domain first, followed by a colon, followed by the new domain
such as /md:OldDomain:NewDomain. When you want to migrate all users to the same domain,
specify only the new domain value. The old domain value can contain wildcard characters
so that you can match multiple old domains, even when you don't want to match all of the
domains.
/mu:<mapping> Maps the user to a new username. When the data store contains multiple
users, you can match a particular user by specifying the older username first, followed by a
colon, followed by the new username such as /mu:OldUser:NewUser.
/q Bypass the administrator account checks. This option lets any user load their own state
information without administrator credentials. However, LoadState normally fails for other
accounts since the user won't have access to them. In addition, LoadState can fail when the user
has insufficient credentials to perform all tasks for their own account.
/lac[:<password>] Create local accounts in a disabled state. This command-line option lets
you load state information even if the local account doesn't exist. USMT will create the account
for you automatically and give the account the password you provide. You should use this
option with caution since the password appears in plain text.
/lae Create local accounts in an enabled state. Use this command-line switch with /lac to enable
any accounts that USMT creates automatically.
/efs:recover Recover any EFS files left in backup form. Use this option when a load fails and
files remain in the backup.
/rollback Enable rollback support. This option will cost you a little extra time, but it lets you
rollback a bad load. Considering migrations are seldom error proof, using this command-line
switch is always a good idea when time allows.
You use the LoadState utility at the command line. In most cases, you'll use it with similar
command-line switches as you used for the ScanState utility, so it pays to review the scan log.
The command-line switches used for the scan always appear as the first item in the log, making
it easier to retrace your steps later. Here's an example of the LoadState utility.
LoadState D:\MySettings /All /LocalOnly /V:5 /L:D:\MySettings\Scan.log \rollback
Generally, the instructions in this section are all you need to use USMT effectively on a single
machine. You can find more information in the "Saving Settings with the User Setting Migration
Toolkit (USMT)" section of Chapter 39. These additional instructions help you understand the complexities
of an enterprise environment and work with the version of USMT that comes with the BDD.
Continue to Upgrading to Windows Vista: Performing the update installation.
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 Mark Minasi is a best-selling author, commentator and all-around alpha geek. Mark is best known for his books in the Mastering Windows series. What separates him from others is that he knows how to explain technical things to normal humans, and make them laugh while doing it. Mark's firm, MR&D, is based in Pungo, a town in Virginia's Tidewater area that is distinguished by having one -- and only one -- traffic light.
Copyright 2007 TechTarget |
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