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 ?

[watkykjy]

I only just read the workaround to the workaround post! Thanks, that makes A LOT of sense, and I will definitely try that quickly and let you know

 

Thanks!!

[watkykjy]

GENIUS! ABSOLUTELY GENIUS!!

 

This solved my problem too! I am now getting to the runscanstate task, where it fails with an error 27, saying that my " Settings store argument specified is invalid". I believe that once this is sorted I should be doing just fine, and the rest of the task sequence will go ahead as planned

 

If anyone has any advice to give here, that would be very much appreciated, otherwise I will google a little more to see if I can figure out how to fix this step...

 

Thanks a lot for all your help!

[watkykjy]

Hi Guys,

 

Just popping in to say a huge thank you to all involved! I finally managed to get our test system upgraded from windows XP to windows 7, taking across the entire profile, and restoring everything on the new OS as well. I now need to work on getting the applications re-installed, etc.

 

thank you once again, it's really appreciated, keep up the good work guys!

 

Johan

[anyweb]

great stuff, you should look at webcast #2, which is all about installing Applications Dynamically within a task sequence, sounds like it would be useful for you

[Eswar Koneti]

I am sure that,This TS doesnt do any changes with the Keyboard settings.But when I do the TS deploy onto the XP machines,It gets UK English Keybaord settings instead US English settings .If i create TS for a Bare metal systems,It takes only US English Key Board settings.should i need to create any xml files for the keybaord settings?

[Eswar Koneti]

Its resolved it now by adding the Custom image settings(xml file) under apply operating system task in TS.

 

 

[jering]

Nice work!

 

I`ve imported the task sequence and set up the cmd-file as a package and assigned the right packages and a Win7 OS image.

However, when I run the task sequence on a computer running Windows XP it fails on "do x86 scanstate" with the error 0x00000001.

I can see that the C:\USMTOffline and C:\USMTbits are created and that the cmd-file and the USMT-files are there.

 

Any ideas?

[anyweb]

post your smsts.log file here, usually 0x00000001 means file not found or similar...

[jering]

post your smsts.log file here, usually 0x00000001 means file not found or similar...

 

I`m sorry, I did a mistake and chose the "USMT - both" package where I should have chosen the "USMT - x86 only".

Fixed that and now it works as expected. Thanks for your quick reply!

 

The scenario where I`m planning to use this:

New domain with a new installation of SCCM 2007 R2 with SP2 and MDT 2010-integration

Old domain with Windows XP client computers

Users migrated from old domain to new domain using Active Directory Migration Tool (with SID History and passwords).

 

What we want to accomplish is to migrate the client computers to Windows 7 and join them directly to the new domain.

I guess that local profiles can be retained by using the /md:OldDomain:NewDomain switch on the loadstate.exe.

Anyone tried this?

[anyweb]

Users migrated from old domain to new domain using Active Directory Migration Tool (with SID History and passwords).

 

What we want to accomplish is to migrate the client computers to Windows 7 and join them directly to the new domain.

I guess that local profiles can be retained by using the /md:OldDomain:NewDomain switch on the loadstate.exe.

Anyone tried this?

 

hopefully you'll post how you get on with it after you've got it working

 

i think the /mu switch is one to look at though