(JanssonCA) 1

Replacing peoples PC’s it’s a real pain making sure we get everything over.

We’re currently moving PPLs personal folders over to OneDrive and it will be great I’m sure,
although it’s a real pain getting Redirected/Offline folder data back onto the PCs and then onto OneDrive.

  • We will get there but it is a tedious task that MS could have done much more to make convenient!

But even after that we will still have PC replacement issues as

  1. many of our users does not find making a sync account in their browsers a task worthy to their status
    so they loose all their browser favorites, saved homepage passwords and so on.
  2. they might save data in strange places like EndNote/OneNote databases outside their profile
  3. they have all kinds of custom shortcuts etc.

Is there an easy way to make sure all the above, along with Desktop, Taskbar links, Quick links and Recent files links
can be transferred over to a new PC?

26 Spice ups
2

The user profile migration tool from Forensit.

Copies the whole profile and re-acls it on the new computer.

Be careful with browsers as password files are encrypted and might not work when transferred.

9 Spice ups
3

PC Mover from Laplink would be something to consider

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User State Migration Tool

6 Spice ups
5

Try getting as many native sync configurations under control as you can (like OneDrive including Known Folder Move) and browser sync (if using Edge you can even have them use their corporate accounts). The tricky ones are always those who save directly to C:\ or non standard locations.

1 Spice up
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Another vote for Forensit Transwiz utility - designed to transfer personal data and settings to another pc.

3 Spice ups
7

I would add if you can find the MigWiz.exe from a Win7 system, you can use it on Win10 to do these migrations.
Easy, effective and efficient and free.

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8

Why not just create a volume level backup and restore it to the new PC?

I’ve done this many times with Veeam Agent for Windows. Can even restore over the network if need be.

9

I do the migWiz.exe from a WIndows 7 disk and it works really well. Keep in mind that architectures matter (x64 version for x64 Windows 10). If you have the time to figure out USMT, it’s very powerful, there are some http://usmtgui.com/ USMT GUI programs that make it easier. ForensIT has another good one.

10

if all else fails, you could copy the profile files from the old machine to the new one and hope for the best :smiley:

11

I often find a new Windows profile can be a good thing as it will clear out all of the rubbish built up over the years.

Exporting favourites from IE & Chrome is easy enough, although better to login to Chrome/new Edge anyway.

Desktop shortcuts easy to back up also.

I also do a check for any PST files that may have wrongly been created on the c: drive, just in case.

It’s a painful process but the amount of times a new Windows profile fixes certain errors I still think it’s worth it.

3 Spice ups
12

We agonised over this at our last major hardware refresh.
We found the easiest things to do were allow OneDrive to back up My Documents, Pictures, Desktop etc. - about the only thing is doesn’t take is Downloads - and with the increased space on Exchange Online we blocked users creating PSTs. We advise users to log in to Edge (our preferred Browser - some do use others, but seeing as most things run on Chromium-flavour Edge, we generally restrict to that) so that their bookmarks transfer, and as we use Edge on the mobiles too, users are finding that helpful anyway. Even the Directors manage this, along with most of the people who are the “Don’t you know who I am? I haven’t got time for this!” bunch, especially seeing as it’s easier to opt in than opt out.
About the only thing we don’t manage to transfer is Taskbar pins - but most of our users are bright enough to manage that bit for themselves.
Caveat - we are using Intune to set up the new boxes anyway, so you can just tell it to do all of this as part of the device setup except for actually logging Edge in (unless I missed that setting!).
Either way, between OneDrive, Intune and Edge, we’ve had a lot fewer issues with users coming back needing access to their old machines since we started doing it that way, I think just one or two with odd settings to lift from specialist software.

2 Spice ups
13

Forenzit
We did try Forenzit and with success to some degree but have problems with:

  1. Browser cached passwords and also

  2. had trouble omitting the Onedrive, on those already ported to Onedrive.

    • Also the OneDrive account settings is a bugger

  3. Especially making sure finding all the files some users has scattered all over their system

LapLink PCmover

We haven’t tried. It’s a no-go, way too expensive.

User state Migration Tool
That’s a command line tool and I fear for the learning curve… our Younger supporters and a command line.
I´ll have a look at it as it seems to be what Microsoft recommends. It seems like I need to go through downloading the ADK for Windows 10.

14

+1 for forensit. We have used both the Profile Wizard (move to different domain) and Transwiz (moves profile to new machine). Has been a huge time saver for us and captures personal files, desktop settings, browser favorites, etc…

15

We used to use migwiz until we found that it broke some low level COM settings for one of our customers that require smart cards. The only way to fix the issue was to re-image the machine.

For most machines we manage, OneDrive is the location for all documents and we just assist users in exporting their bookmarks in browsers other than Edge to OneDrive, as well as Outlook signatures. We also make sure they know that anything kept outside of those redirected folders isn’t guaranteed to be backed up. We’ve had buy-in from management for most of our customers as well. The main message we’ve tried to have them convey is that if it isn’t in OneDrive, SharePoint, or a network share it doesn’t exist.

For those cases where OneDrive isn’t an option (kiosk style machines or local equipment accounts) we’ll use the admin share to access the user account(s) that need to be transferred and copy the contents of the same folders, or any software specific folders to their respective locations on the new machine.

16

USMTGUI Profile manager seems to be a GUI especially for running USMT - a bit like the MS Migration Wizard I once used on Windows 7

It is referred to here: https://community.spiceworks.com/products/66573-usmtgui-profile-manager-v10
Quite an old review but homepage looks updated.

Do any of you have any experience with it?

17

Honestly I never worry about a user’s profile when replacing their computer. I tell them to save everything to their personal network drive or OneDrive. I make sure everything is installed that they need to use but everything else is on them.

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  1. many of our users does not find making a sync account in their browsers a task worthy to their status
    so they loose all their browser favorites, saved homepage passwords and so on.
  • Tell them you are backing up their bookmarks but you arent responsible for passwords, it’s not your responsibility know what passwords they use.
  1. they might save data in strange places like EndNote/OneNote databases outside their profile
  • Tell them to copy whatever they need and that you aren’t responsible for a missing folder, point to them folders like documents, videos, pictures, and tell them to look for the files they need.
  1. they have all kinds of custom shortcuts etc.
  • to make it easier, copy all their desktop and paste it in their new computer.
    Or,
    you can try to use ForensIT migration tool.
    We just try to make it simple here.
1 Spice up
19

Hi asdfsk

" We just try to make it simple here " - Agreed!

I too like simple and find users being spoiled. I do, however, not call the shots and am expected to secure user data.

  • Also from not so clever users.

Forenzit is really hard to figure out. Actually I do not think it is capable at all in searching through the system for specific file types
but I’m currently communicating with Ehlertech and he says USMT is especially good at doing exactly that.

We’re considering using USMT through his “USMTGUI” program of which I’ve just received a trial.

From his reply:
“The USMTGUI default setting is to backup all user profile stuff, all browser favorites and cached passwords from Firefox and Chrome.
All documents from the users profile is migrated but If documents etc are on OneDrive, they are automatically omitted by MigUser.xml.
As part of MigUser.xml there is a section taking hand of a long list of file types that will be collected if found. The list can be editied”

20

If I am not mistaken, cached passwords are encrypted. Transferring these caches to a different OS/machine/profile should make them unrecoverable/unreadable unless some 3rd party password management software or own browser sync feature is used.