Datasheet

Designing User State Migration 13
Windows System Image Manager This is used to create an unattend.txt text file that can
be used to automate an installation and to open images.
Documentation This provides links to several help files including the Unattended
Windows Setup Reference, the Windows Automated Installation Kit, and the Windows PE
User’s Guide. Not all help files are available here. Notably for this chapter, the help file for
the USMT isn’t accessible here even though it was installed. The USMT help file is available
in the
C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Docs\CHMs folder and is named WAIK.chm.
VAMT 1.2 The
VAMT 1.2 folder includes a help file for the Volume Activation
Management Tool (VAMT) and a link to launch the Volume Activation Management Tool.
You’ll use more of these tools later in this chapter and in Chapter 2. For now, the focus
is on the USMT tools
ScanState and LoadState.
Performing In-Place Migration
When you do the installation of Windows on a computer running Windows XP, Windows
Vista, or Windows 7, you can do a Custom (Advanced) installation. A message will appear
similar to Figure 1.1, informing you that you can access files from the previous installation
in a folder named
Windows.old.
FIGURE 1.1 Windows installation notification
Files from the previous installation will be gone if you do any advanced
repartitioning of the existing hard drive. The
Windows.old folder will be
created only if you use the partition as it exists when the install is started.
Now all you have to do is get the data out of the Windows.old folder and back to the
original location. You can spend hours cutting, pasting, and adjusting permissions, or you
can automate the process with the User State Migration Tool.
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