using Offline Mode in Windows PE using USMT 4 via a task sequence in SCCM 2007 SP2

[anyweb]

hi all,

 

Note: This post has been reproduced in a webcast, so if you'd like to see a video of Offline Mode in WinPE then click here

 

 

 

well this feature in USMT 4 is handy, as it allows you to do a scanstate while in Windows PE in other words, not in the OS so no problems with services running or applications running meaning that you get to backup everything you want without any locked files stopping from doing so.

 

Offline mode does however have some restrictions, read this page on Technet for details of that. To get around these restrictions and to migrate wallpaper see here, to migrate your network printers see here.

 

 

Great, but how do I do Offline Mode in Windows PE using SCCM ?

 

according to Microsoft, we can use the /offlinewindir switch in USMT 4 with scanstate.

 

/offlinewindir: "path to a windows directory"

 

 

This option specifies the offline Windows directory that the ScanState command gathers user state from. The offline directory can be Windows.old when you run the ScanState command in Windows or a Windows directory when you run the ScanState command in Windows PE. This option is incompatible with the /offline option.

 

However, implementing it isn't so straigtforward as you've probably already discovered and documentation about getting it to work within SCCM is as far as I can see pretty much non-existant,

so here courtesy of windows-noob.com is one way of doing it, feel free to show us other ways.

 

The theory behind this:-

 

As the Capture User State Step in a standard task sequence can only run in Windows, we cannot use that step to do our scanstate while in Windows PE, therefore we will use some tricks to run scanstate from WinPE.

 

To do this we create two special packages, the first package contains a batch file which calls the scanstate.exe file and the second package is the entire USMT X86 scanstate files and folders, (note: in this example we are using scanstate from the X86 folder).

 

This means that we create a separate package to the normal USMT4 package and this is only because this example is a workaround or proof of concept to prove that Offline Mode in Windows PE can be done via a Task Sequence in SCCM.

 

Update: If you would like sample code to check for and use the correct USMT architecture in offline mode then see Peters post here

 

 

Get your lab ready

 

We need a Windows XP client machine to test scanstate on and you should enable the F8 command prompt option in your boot.wim (you'll need it).

 

 

The Task Sequence

 

You can use this Task Sequence in SCCM by importing it. Please note this task sequence only has the 4 groups in it, if you want the 4 groups plus OSD then use the other Task Sequence further down.

 

Offline Mode in Windows PE using USMT 4.xml

 

The task sequence depends on three packages, the X86 bits from your USMT 4 (ie: copy everything in the X86 folder from C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\USMT folder. There are two versions, one for 32bit (X86) and one for 64bit (amd64), we are only using the X86 bits in this guide), the Batchfile

 

 

 

I break up my task sequence into four distinct groups, Set, Create, xcopy and Run

 

SET

 

 

In the Set group I set SystemDrive to c: (otherwise it will try and do this on the windows PE x: drive)

 

 

Next we set the OSDStateStorePath Task Sequence Variable to %systemdrive%\USMToffline which translates to c:\USMToffline, this directory will store our migration data during scanstate operations and when the new os is being applied.

 

 

Finally we set the hardlink load parameters

 

 

 

CREATE

 

In the Create group we just create two folders, c:\USMToffline,

 

 

and c:\USMTbits\X86

 

 

 

the c:\USMTbits\X86 will store all our scanstate native files.

 

 

XCOPY

 

In the xcopy group we do the clever stuff, we copy the X86 USMT stuff to the newly created folder, and then we copy our batch file for later user.

 

 

The batch file itself has the following contents

 

 

@set USMT_WORKING_DIR=%~2%\USMTbits\x86

"%~2\USMTbits\x86\scanstate.exe" "%~1" /c /o /hardlink /efs:hardlink /nocompress /offlinewindir:c:\windows /v:5 /l:%~2\windows\TEMP\SMSTSLog\scanstate.log /progress:%~2\windows\TEMP\SMSTSLog\scanstateprogress.log /i:%~2\USMTbits\x86\miguser.xml /i:%~2\USMTbits\x86\migapp.xml

 

 

You can download the batchfile below however you must rename it back to .bat

 

runscanstate-offlinewindir.bat.txt

 

 

RUN

 

The Run group does the actual running of the batch file and passes two variables to the file.

 

 

 

 

Testing Offline Mode.

 

Create an optional advertisement to a Migrate XP to W7 X86 collection for the Task Sequence and PXE boot your XP client (press F12 first....), select the Task Sequence when the wizard appears,

 

 

at this point press F8 to bring up the command prompt, you are doing this to verify that your data is getting migrated in OFFLINE mode. So here we can see the command prompt is open.

 

 

Ok switch back to the TS and start the task sequence. You will see it starts creating the folders, copying the USMT stuff and our batch file(s) and then actually running the scanstate command.

 

 

 

Once it is completed your migrated data will now be stored in C:\USMToffline\USMT

 

browse it and verify

 

 

If you want to see a working SMSTS.log file from the above test see below

 

smsts.log

 

 

Ok now what ?

[ZeusABJ]

Hey guys,

 

First this is a really awesome Document but I do have one question. Have you though about adapting it for MDT users in a non-SCCM environment? Thats the boat I'm in. I'm sure there's a way to make it work in MDT; I just don't know how, lol!

[ZeusABJ]

So okay, I decided to come up with my own offline USMT solution for MDT. Since I used this guide as as tarting point I figured I'd post what I came up with here. Its over on the MDT TechNet forums at the link below:

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mdt/thread/37f9b92b-181d-4629-a424-a3a6b2b08e9c

 

I hope someone else finds this useful.

[anyweb]

great work thanks for sharing and feel free to post that guide in the MDT part of windows-noob also

[ZeusABJ]

great work thanks for sharing and feel free to post that guide in the MDT part of windows-noob also

 

Wow okay yeah I guess I had not thought of that!!! Will do!

[ZeusABJ]

Done! I hope people find it useful:

 

http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3429-performing-a-usmt-migration-in-offline-mode-under-windows-pe-my-solution/

[ahmed ali]

Hi i need to ask question about the migration is the Offline Task Sequence require MDT if yes i need to know how can restore files to user profile directly

thanks

[bcetin]

Hi, it's a great guide and gave me a headstart as our company will be migrating from XP to W7. I have a question about the offline mode; is it possible to use this method but saving the user data to a network folder instead of saving locally? Also after W7 migration, I would like to use this method in replacement scenarios (W7 to W7 but different hardware), so I will need to backup to a network location.

 

If offline mode cannot do this, what is the method you would prefer, does USMT 4.0 support this in any other way? I do not want to use SMP.

 

Thanks.

[Peter van der Woude]

The actions mentioned in this article can certainly NOT do that. Main reason is that there are also hardlinks used. These are local pointers to the data and the reason why this proces is so quick.

 

Back to your question. If you want to use a networkstorage why NOT using a SMP?

[bcetin]

The actions mentioned in this article can certainly NOT do that. Main reason is that there are also hardlinks used. These are local pointers to the data and the reason why this proces is so quick.

 

Back to your question. If you want to use a networkstorage why NOT using a SMP?

 

Hi Peter, I had a look at the script and removed the hardlink options, modified it for saving files to a network location. Also added a network drive mapping at the start of the Task Sequence. I have also changed the OSDStateStorePath variable in TS to a shared folder. I will be trying to make this work.

 

SMP can be used but we have many branches and do not want to deploy an SCCM server for just one role to very small locations consisting of 4-5 clients. I could replace the PXE role with some scripts and if I can also skip SMP role with USMT, there will be no need for an SCCM server in small locations.

 

But if I fail these, of course I will need to go back to SMP and a site server to each location.

[Rubiinio]

My SCCM is SP2 R2 with MDT2010 Update 1 integrated.

 

I'm using anywebs imported Task Sequence for USMT offline migration.

 

So this is my problem:

 

I have XP operating systems where all the profiles are located in the root of d -partition (D:\Documents and settings).

 

I have a plain Win 7 image and I've configured unattend.xml file so that it moves the Win 7 profile folder "users" to d -partition. (d:\Users) during the task sequence. When I ran the the offline migration task sequence it run perfectly and there are no errors in the log files.

 

But still I can not get the profile files to migrate correctly. After the migration has completed and when I log in to the computer I can see both the d:\Documents and settings folder (which has all the profiles that should be migrated) and D:\users folder in the d -partition. And the just logged on user account is of course created in the users folder.

 

So it simply seems that the user files don't get migrated.

 

I'm really badly stuck with this problem.

 

Does somebody have any idea what the problem might be?

 

Do I somehow have to modify the MigUser.xml file to scan the d -drive?