Microsoft’s User Migration 3.1

Here is how I implimented Microsoft’s User Migration.  I think it works pretty well and it wasn’t obvious from the documents how this would work.

REM Here is how to create the custom configuration XML files used in the real script.

REM “%programfiles%\USMT301\scanstate” \\servername\user_migration\%computername% /o /targetxp /ue:adminsitrator /i:\\servername\user_migration\config.xml /l:\\servername\user_migration\%computername%_saved_log.txt /v:1

REM Make sure to Install .Net 2.0

REM Install User Migration 3.1 tool (same version on before and after machine)

REM “%windir%\system32\msiexec.exe” /i “\\servername\user_migration\User Migration\InstallUSMT301_x86.msi“

REM This will create and save all users profiles to a folder named after the computername.

REM Before wiping computer, make sure you have some data.  This tool will create empty directory structures even on failure.

“%programfiles%\USMT301\scanstate” \\servername\user_migration\%computername% /i:miguser.xml /i:migapp.xml /i:migsys.xml /targetxp /v:13 /l:\\servername\user_migration\%computername%_saved_log.txt /all

pause

Then after 5-10 minutes I go to the next machine or reimage the current machine.

@echo on

REM Make sure that you have User Migration 3.1 installed on new computer

rem “%windir%\system32\msiexec.exe” /i “\\servername\user_migration\User Migration\InstallUSMT301_x86.msi”

REM This will ask for input and put it into the %computer% variable

SET /P computer=Enter the computername of the old computer you want to load:

“%programfiles%\USMT301\loadstate.exe” \\servername\user_migration\%computer% /i:miguser.xml /i:migapp.xml /i:migsys.xml /v:13 /l:\\servername\user_migration\%computer%_to_%computername%_restore_log.txt /all /c

pause

This will create folders with profile data and log files with both the save and loading process.  If you don’t see a -/|\ (Rotating asterisk) you won’t have anything successful.

Remotely Recursively list files on the network

Bash single line:

for i in `cat workstations.txt`; \
do echo “=========”; \
echo; \
echo $i; \
smbclient -p 445 -k //$i/c$ -D ‘Documents and Settings/All Users/start menu’ -c ‘recurse;ls’;\
done > Output\ Report.txt

This gives me the flexibility to see what desktops have whatever file I wanted to look up.

Bill Gates Upset about Windows Filesystem and Registry

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

This is a great quote from Bill Gates about how hard it is to keep implementations of good ideas both usable and organized.

I can see how the Windows Registry started as a great idea. On Linux the /etc folder is the system configuration and could potentially be improved by placing all data into a database. Gnome is using something similar to Windows Registry called Gconf. Some people dislike Gconf because it is reminisent of Windows Registry but Gconf is a grand idea. The trick will be if open source can do a better job keeping the cruft out of Gconf and /etc.

Pidgin and Gtalk behind a firewall

Google didn’t include instructions for how to set up Pidgin when you are behind an ISA 2006 firewall.

I needed to change the normal port 5222 to port 443 to get through the firewall and then I had to enable the old SSL protocol. I don’t understand why the SSL/TLS failed. Maybe it had something to do with the Debian SSL certificate problem.

How do I configure Pidgin for Google Talk?