How to Install and Upgrade Windows 8

  • 4/15/2013
Contents

Objective 1.3: Migrate and configure user data

An installation solution that commonly best suits businesses is called migration. This involves saving portions of the current installation, such as the user account and data and files, by backing them up to a temporary store while you reimage the computer. This saved state data can later be returned to the computer.

This objective covers how to:

  • Choose how best to migrate user data to Windows 8

  • Migrate files and settings using Windows Easy Transfer

  • Migrate user files and settings using the User State Migration Tool

  • Set up folder redirection

Choosing to migrate

Migration to Windows 8 is recommended for many reasons, especially for Windows XP installations. For example, you can ensure that no problems associated with the previous Windows installation, including malware and viruses, carry over to the new Windows 8 installation. You can also easily restore user accounts with not just the main enterprise-set account permissions but also a user’s individual preferences.

IMPORTANT: Backup, Backup, Backup!

You probably don’t need to be reminded of two things: that you can try turning the computer off and on again if a problem occurs, and that you should keep current backups. Because backups are absolutely essential, they are mentioned here because, although the tools available to migrate a user’s settings and files from one computer to another are excellent, Murphy’s law dictates that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. It’s therefore during this essential transition that you can reasonably guarantee that it will.

Before migrating user data, you should create a complete backup of the computer’s entire hard disk. You might need this in case the Windows 8 installation fails or encounters a problem, and you find that you need to restore the older operating system until you can rectify the error. Alternatively, you could experience something catastrophic such as a power outage during the installation or migration.

You can perform a data migration from one computer to another in two ways: by using Windows Easy Transfer, a feature built into Windows 8, and by using the User State Migration Tool (USMT), which is provided as part of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT).

Migration using Windows Easy Transfer

Don’t think of Windows Easy Transfer as a basic tool to help consumers switch to another computer at home because it’s much more useful and full featured than you might imagine. For example, you can use it to migrate files, settings, and accounts from one computer to another over a network and in a secure manner. Follow these steps to perform a migration with Windows Easy Transfer:

  1. Start Windows Easy Transfer on the host and target PCs. On the target (Windows 8) PC, search for Windows Easy Transfer from the Start screen. On the host PC, run Windows Easy Transfer from a Windows 8 installation DVD or flash drive; you can find it in the E:\support\migwiz folder (assuming E is the letter associated with the installation media). You need to run the program Migwiz.exe (see Figure 1-6).

    FIGURE 1-6

    FIGURE 1-6 Launching Windows Easy Transfer on the host PC

    On startup, Windows Easy Transfer tells you what it can transfer (see Figure 1-7). This, frankly, is anything and everything from the host PC except the operating system. This makes Windows Easy Transfer a very powerful tool.

    FIGURE 1-7

    FIGURE 1-7 Starting Windows Easy Transfer

  2. Decide how you want to transfer the user accounts and data (see Figure 1-8). You can perform this transfer using an external USB hard disk or, if you have one large enough, a USB flash drive. You can also perform the transfer over a wired or wireless network, although using a wireless network isn’t recommended in case the signal is lost during the transfer.

    FIGURE 1-8

    FIGURE 1-8 Choosing how to transfer the user data

    Until now, you have been selecting the same options on both host and target PCs.

  3. Specify which is the host (old) PC and which is the target (new) PC (see Figure 1-9).

    FIGURE 1-9

    FIGURE 1-9 Choosing which is the target PC

    If you are transferring files over a network, Windows Easy Transfer will give you a security code on the host PC that needs to be typed into the target PC to make the connection (see Figure 1-10).

    FIGURE 1-10

    FIGURE 1-10 Security code from Windows Easy Transfer

  4. Select what to transfer from the host PC while the target PC waits for the transfer to begin. The choices screen is simply laid out and easy to use, with Customize and Advanced links available to help you choose which aspects of a user’s account and what else on the computer’s hard drive to transfer (see Figure 1-11).

    FIGURE 1-11

    FIGURE 1-11 Choosing what to migrate in Windows Easy Transfer

Migration using the User State Migration Tool (USMT)

You can find the command-line User State Migration Tool in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\User State Migration Tool folder of your hard disk after you install the ADK. Here, you will see different x86 and amd64 versions of the tool; you should use the one that matches the operating system you are using. (On 32-bit Windows versions, this path will read C:\Program Files\Windows Kit… and so on, because the x86 part of the folder address isn’t used.)

The main tools in this folder, for which you will need to open a command prompt, are as follows:

  • ScanState.exe. The migration tool for files, settings, and accounts from the host computer.

  • LoadState.exe. The migration import tool for the target computer.

  • MigApp.xml. This tool contains details of software that migrates from a Windows 7 computer to a Windows 8 computer.

  • MigUser.xml. This tool contains details of the user accounts to migrate.

  • MigDocs.xml. This tool contains details of the documents and files to migrate.

  • Custom.xml. This tool enables you to create custom XML files that can migrate additional files and data, such as a line-of-business (LOB) application, or to modify the default migration behavior.

  • Config.xml. This tool can be used to exclude certain items from migration. You can create this file using the /genconfig option in the scanstate tool.

You run the ScanState command-line tool on the host computer with the following format:

scanstate [StorePath] [/i:[path\]FileName] [Options]

The /i[path\]FileName option specifies an XML file that contains rules determining what’s to be migrated. You can specify this option multiple times to include all your necessary .xml files.

With those options is a great menu to choose from, and you can find descriptions of them by using the /? switch with the ScanState.exe command. Another switch that you certainly want to know about is /hardlink, which you can use to create hard links to the migration store location. If you use this switch, you must also use the /nocompress switch.

On the target PC, you would use the LoadState command with this format:

Loadstate [StorePath] [/i:[path\]FileName] [Options]

Again, you can read about many command-line switches with the /? switch, but the most important is /lac:[password] (local account create), which specifies that a local user account is to be created on the target computer. By default, the account will be disabled if it doesn’t already exist on the target computer, and you should use the /lae (local account enable) switch to enable it.

EXAM TIP

Because LoadState.exe and ScanState.exe offer the administrator the ability to migrate to Windows 8 securely, efficiently and importantly at scale, you should ensure that your exam preparation includes these two commands.

Using folder redirection

You might want to consider redirecting a user’s files, or all users’ files, to a central server when you migrate the user files to a new Windows 8 computer. This isn’t the same as users having a roaming profile where their files and documents are always kept on the server as well as on their own computer and synched whenever they log in. This method uses either a server in the office or one of the computers as a file server.

All files and documents for all users will always be stored solely on this central server and nowhere else. Doing so has certain advantages, not the least of which is file security if anybody uses a laptop, because files stored on this computer won’t be available outside the immediate network.

REAL WORLD: Creating a Backup for a Local Area Network or VPN

When I was working in a small training center with five staff members who were part of a national education charity, we had huge amounts of resources (teaching and paperwork) that everybody wanted access to. We each had our own PC but no server.

I moved all files to one computer—the one the administrator used that was most commonly going to be switched on all the time—and updated the documents folders (this was Windows XP, pre-libraries) to point to the shared folder that contained all the resources. Then, on another computer I created a hidden backup folder and used a free backup tool to ensure that a second copy of all the files was kept up-to-date.

Nobody outside the office could access these files because they were available only on the local network. This suited us for security, however, because the files contained personal data about learners in the center.

If we had a small server in the office, however, I could have set up a virtual private network (VPN) to allow access to these files for staff when they were out and about on their laptops or when they were working at home. Today you can also set this up on Windows To Go drives.

You can add the central storage, which can be per user or shared between users, to the main libraries in Windows 8 as follows:

  1. Create a folder on the target computer for the network share—for example, C:\Shared.

  2. Create another folder within that folder—for example, C:\Shared\Documents.

  3. Select the subfolder that you just created. On the Home tab on the ribbon, click Easy Access, and then click Include In Library.

  4. Delete the folder.

  5. Press Win+X to open the Administration menu and then click Command Prompt (Admin).

  6. Type mklink /d followed by the path of the folder you just deleted and the path of the network folder—for example, mklink /d C:\Share\Documents\\Server\SharedDocs—to create a symbolic link between the two folders.

    Doing so adds the network files to your library, something that can’t be done from within File Explorer itself.

You can also use the Sync Center in Windows 8 to maintain a synchronized copy of the server files on the local computer—useful if the user is working on a laptop—by right-clicking the folder you want to make available and clicking Always Available Offline from the options that appear (see Figure 1-12).

FIGURE 1-12

FIGURE 1-12 Syncing a network folder

The first synchronization will then take place, which can take some time if you have many files, and a copy of the network files will then be kept on the local computer.

To manage this sync partnership, open the Sync Center by searching for it at the Start screen. You will want to use two main options most of all:

  • To manage the schedule when the files are synched with the server, double-click the sync relationship in the main Sync Center view and then click the Schedule link that appears on the toolbar. Figure 1-13 shows how you can set the frequency or specific times when synchronization takes place.

    FIGURE 1-13

    FIGURE 1-13 Changing the synch schedule for offline files

  • The other aspect of synchronization over which you might want finer control is the offline copy of the server files. To access these controls, click the Manage Offline Files link. Here you can enable and disable synchronization, but on the Disk Usage tab you can change the amount of local disk space allocated for synchronized files, which is useful for laptops with small hard disks. You can also remove any temporary files that might not have been cleaned up (see Figure 1-14). On the Encryption tab you can also force encryption of the offline files, which can be useful if those files include anything that would be covered by data protection legislation, such as personal details of individuals.

    FIGURE 1-14

    FIGURE 1-14 Managing offline files

Thought experiment: Upgrading for mobile workers

In the following thought experiment, apply what you’ve learned about this objective. You can find answers to these questions in the “Answers” section at the end of this chapter.

A small office doesn’t have a server but requires mobile workers to have access to files at all times when out on the road. Which of the following statements is true and why?

  1. You can set the encryption status of files in the office by using Encrypting File System (EFS) and then open them on local PCs using the correct EFS decryption key.

  2. You can use the Windows 8 Sync Center to encrypt files that are synched from the office.

  3. Secure encrypted access to files from a remote location can be gained only by logging on to the server via a VPN.

Objective summary

  • To migrate user accounts and files from one computer to another, use either the Windows Easy Transfer tool or the User State Migration Tool.

  • The ScanState command offers many more configurability options than Windows Easy Transfer but requires some knowledge of XML.

  • You can relocate user files to a server or central file store and still maintain access to them in Windows 8 libraries.

Objective review

Answer the following questions to test your knowledge in this objective. You can find the correct answers to these questions and explanations of why each answer choice is correct or incorrect in the “Answers” section at the end of this chapter.

  1. In which folder on the Windows 8 installation media will you find the Windows Easy Transfer tool?

    1. \support\wet

    2. \support\migwiz

    3. \support\migration

    4. \sources\migwiz

  2. Which .xml file should you use to specify items to exclude from a migration?

    1. Custom.xml

    2. Exclude.xml

    3. Config.xml

    4. MigDocs.xml

  3. Which LoadState command-line switch or switches are required to create a user account on a new computer?

    1. /createuser

    2. /lua and /lae

    3. /lac and /lae

    4. /lac

  4. How can you make server files available on a local computer?

    1. By applying them to a local library

    2. By setting their offline availability status

    3. By setting up a new sync partnership

    4. Server files are available only when connected to the local network

  5. Setting a sync partnership between server files and a local PC stores how many of the server files locally?

    1. All shared server files

    2. All server files up to a maximum specified local storage amount

    3. The most recently accessed server files

    4. Server files that don’t have their archive switch activated

Save to your account

This chapter is from the book