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 ?

[Eswar Koneti]

Hi, Sorry for the delay.It is succeded but doesnt restore the user profiles.I can see USMToffline folder in Systemdrive and it has all the user profiles contained in C$ folder.Here is the patch where all user profiles are stored. c:\usmtoffline\usmt\file\c$\documents and settings.

 

 

[anyweb]

it wont restore the profiles if domain join fails, so did it join ?

[Eswar Koneti]

Ah.cool!,It doesn't Join. thanks! Mate

[watkykjy]

Hi Guys,

 

I am trying this setup as well, but I have a little bit of a twist. My company requires that we do a zero touch upgrade of our environment, so what I ended up doing was to advertise the task sequence to an online machine (winXP), and then in the restart parameters, I tell it to start with the boot image assigned to the task sequence, which gets me started in WinPE, so I am fine there.. this is just to prevent me from having to walk to the machine, press F12, etc.. So, once in WinPE, I get to creating the USMTbits and USMTOffline folders, which works fine. then I get to the copying, and this is where my problem begins. I created a package that doesn't have any programs associated with it, but just points to my software distribution share\usmt 4.0 tools\x86 folder. Now, during the first Xcopy, we tell it to copy * to the %systemdrive%\USMTbits\X86 /herciy. What this essentially does is to copy EVERYTHING from my SMSPKGD$ share, and not from my distribution share\usmt 4.0 tools\x86 folder. Upon further investigation, it would appear as if the problem might be in the way the Microsoft USMT 4.0 x86 package was created, because if I go to the properties of that package, and I click on the "data access" tab, it says: "Access the distribution folder through common ConfigMgr package share, whcih as far as I am aware is SMSPKGD$.

 

So, all taken into account, my problem is the fact that I have the wrong files being copied, and I don't know how to specify the correct folder path so that the USMT 4.0\x86 files are copied.

 

Can anyone provide some pointers here please?

 

Thanks!!

[anyweb]

check your advertisement settings for that task sequence, is 'access content directly' selected or not ?

[watkykjy]

check your advertisement settings for that task sequence, is 'access content directly' selected or not ?

 

Yup, it's set to access the content directly...

[anyweb]

ok and if you change the package source of that package to 'local drive on site server' what happens ?

[dndoorlag]

I had the same issue where if your advertisement was set to "Access Content Directly from a Distribution point..." the XCOPY step would copy ALL Contents of my $SMSPKGx share to the USMTBITS folder (NOT what was desired). I DESIRE to keep the advertisment to this option (Access Content Directly from Distribution point) and I found this "bug" work around (Link: http://blogs.technet.com/osd/archive/2009/12/31/why-do-all-packages-get-cached-when-steps-to-cache-content-from-a-specific-package-run.aspx)

Bottom line to correct is to change your XCOPY to use: xcopy %_SMSTSabc12345%* %USMTDrive%\USMTbits /herciy (of course changing the abc12345 to the Package ID of your USMT package). This will ONLY copy the USMT package contents to your local USMTBITS folder and NOT the entire contents of your SMSPKG share.

[anyweb]

nice, so we have a workaround for the workaround

 

cheers

niall

[watkykjy]

ok and if you change the package source of that package to 'local drive on site server' what happens ?

 

 

Still no go. I have tried all sorts of combinations on this thing now.. I even tried copying the USMT4 files into the SMSPKGD$ folder, cause it seems to bind to that, and then tried to change the xcopy command so that it gets the data from there (xcopy usmt4\x86\*.* %systemdrive%\USMTbits\X86\*.* /herciy). But that also didn't work. If I look at smsts.log all I see is this:

 

The directory name is invalid. (Error: 8007010B; Source: Windows)

 

so, it seems that either my package is wrong or I am pointing it wrong somehow. Is it possible you could let me know the exact steps you took in setting up that package, and which one points where, so I can double check that step?

 

thanks so much, I really appreciate all the help!