Data migration strategy

[prinand]

I am trying to sort out a migration strategy.

one of them is when a customer gets a new PC (side by side migration):
in this scenario doing a full migration as in a wipe and load takes twice the time. (first an hour or so to backup the "old PC" and then another hour or so to restore it to the "new PC" so total duration in this example = 2 hours.

this last scenario is where I am thinking about....
is there a way to migrate the profile / data directly from one PC to the other (so it takes only 1 hour ???)
i.e. launch "scanstate" on one machine, and "loadstate" on the receiving new machine where the loadstate receives the date and immediately applies it....
so does anyone know if there is something like USMT that can do a direct migration

the alternative I am considering is doing a minimal USMT migration, so just registry / software settings as provided in USMT and stripped out actual data migration apart from outlook (e-mail PST files)
and then a manual copy of all other data on the D drive....
anyone suggestions on this thought ?


another question : compressing the store, would that have benefit's ?
I once had an issue where I could not restore, because a partition was not big enough so it failed during the loadstate, and thanks to /NOCOMPRESS I was able to manually move the data to another partition....
does anyone know if it is possible to look in and extract data from an compressed store ??

 

[SimonDavies]

First of all what product are you using to migrate the users, is it just a selective copy\paste or a dedicated migration application (Altiris PC Deployment and Migration).

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[prinand]

the only product we have right now is USMT.

 

[SimonDavies]

ok, well it will always depend on how much data you're migrating, I recently updated my wifes laptop, it was a case of replacing XP with Vista, the whole thing took about 2 hours, that's from using the Altiris Personality transplant software to save the profile, installing the OS (and patching it) to replacing the profile back again.

I actually class that as a pretty quick and smooth operation, even with the change in versions of the OS.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[linney]

If it is from an old computer to a new computer is the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard an alternative.

Files and Settings Transfer Wizard

http://aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm

HOW TO: Use Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293118&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

321197 - Description of the User State Migration Tool for Windows XP Professional

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;321197&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

"Copy to" function fails
thread779-1264480

811151 - How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

You could also ask your question in the Server Forums.

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=931

 

[prinand]

USMT will do the job that is not the point, what I am trying to find out is if there is an option to do it live from one machine to the other, without having an intermediate store as this store doubles the migration time...

this is intended for usage by all site support persons for our company. we have quite a bit of locations, and most locations are not that big (25..100 persons) , so we need a portable solution which can be used everywhere without too much demand for special hardware or software.