Systems Deployment

If you don't know what their signon name is, like for example myarbrough, then you won't know what directory to back up from the documents and settings folder. Plus if their apps store information in various locations in the registry your's in another spot of bad luck. However, if all application data is in their profile folder, you can just back up the entire documents and settings folder, and try to restore it when they first log on. Maybe something in the login script that checks a share for a particular folder name, which would be the name of their login id, then copies it all down using Robocopy.exe, then sets a flag letting it know it has already copied the profile and doesn't need to do it again.

But it's really a lot of work. It would be better to come up with a solution for going forward vs trying to think of a solution that fits every possible scenario.

Let me know what you come up with.

Hi,
Have you looked at using USMT. Its a great tool which we used successfully.
Cheers

Can you tell me what is USMT?

Thanks

I figured out what is USMT. I just want to address something else. Do you restrict a user's ability to save files to a certain directory or do you teach them to save to a certain directory. One of my problems with a migration tool is not knowing where a user saves his/her files and having to retrieve them.

Hi,
We do train them to use their My Documents folder but this does not always work. But USMT does scan all the local drives for all files. You must exclude all ini,exe admin profile id's etc etc files.
USMT does have a template when you set it up and you can just add your company specific info.