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 ?

[dga]

Can you please explain the "special workaround" for the first USMT package which uses the x86 files? I need to go from 32bit XP to 64 bit 7. Also I was planning on putting the captured user data on an external drive (or network) as I need to resize the drive partitions, has anybody done this?

 

Regards,

 

DGA

[anyweb]

the workaround simply tells scanstate what to do (command line) via a batch file, and you can store the state on a network share as long as it's not hardlinked, and yes i've done it right here in this MultiPurpose FrontEnd HTA

[dga]

Thanks for the info.

 

Two questions:

 

I need to resize the local partitions, I assume this means I cannot use hardlinking?

 

Has anybody been able to migrate any of the regional settings during an offline USMT migration?

 

Thanks...

[dga]

OK, so I can now hardlink and reformat the local drives, which is cool...

 

It would be nice to get the regional settings migrated over, I cannot believe this is not possible....

[Tu Pham]

I do have another question. Is there a way to force a PXE boot without going to each machine and physically setting up the bios? I read something about the Dell Client Configuration Utility but it looks fairly complicated and only works on Dells. We mostly have Dells but we have several IBMs too. I know, if anyone knows, You Know.

Thank You.

 

There's alo a 1E product which has a PXE helper... we are assessing it now and Ill elt you know how it goes.

[Tu Pham]

Couldn't you do it without the batch file? You can set the TS variable USMT_WORKING_DIR as a TS step and then use a "Run command line" TS step to run the scanstate.exe can't you?

[Dan E.]

Great post. If only Microsoft's documentation in general was this clear!

 

FYI, I think Peter's post with the sample code changed as the link in your first post is dead. I think it changed to:

http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/post/capture-user-files-and-settings-offline-winpe-or-online-fullos-with-configmgr-2007/

[Peter van der Woude]

Correct, I migrated last year from BlogEngine.NET to Wordpress, which changed all the links to my site...

[Dan E.]

I unfortunately skipped page 2 of this thread and was wondering why the xcopy command was copying all of the contents of the SMSPKGn$ share and made a little more flexible workaround.

 

Instead of needing to reference the package name in the xcopy command, you can instead:

1) Create a batch file and name it, for example, install.cmd in the USMT x86 source folder with the following content(s):

xcopy "%~dp0*" %Systemdrive%\USMTbits /herciy

2) in the Xcopy task sequence, change the commandline to simply "install.cmd"

 

This can be done for each XCOPY TS and eliminates the need to reference the Package ID.

[pranay bhagat]

hi Niall,

 

why it's copying all the contents from the distribution point...it should copy only the USMT package..

m confused..