Forum Discussion
MicrosoftWhen replacing PCs, how are you migrating files and settings from old to new PCs?
Trying to get a feel for what people are using for migrating the file contents from users' old PCs to their new PCs in large scale deployments (can be to Windows 10 or other versions).
What do you do now?
1. Use ConfigMgr OSD and its built-in USMT integration.
2. Use MDT with USMT
3. Use USMT standalone
4. Use PCMover
5. I've built a copy script
6. My users are expected to migrate their own data
7. Everyone is on OneDrive, Box, or Dropbox, so everything they want to keep is already in the cloud
16 Replies
- We've been doing manual KFM basically with all system builds redirecting all Desktop / Documents / Favorites / Photos / Music / Video libraries to Associated OneDrive folders.
Been adding pst files into Online Archives as we do these redirects. Just kind of do these with lifecycle upgrades with our Build checklists for support.
Machine fails, rebuilds, upgrades, new image gets fired up, libraries redirected and they sync right back down, it's great. I usually keep all the important stuff backed up on OneDrive so it gets synced automatically. For the other stuff, I usually use an External Hard Drive.
- We are using a combination of 1 and 7.
- 8. Email is in Exchange Online. Copy documents and old PST by hand. Plan to sync documents to OneDrive later.
- JeremyChapmanMSFT
This sounds like it is the most common way - even for large enterprises - and some are using scripts or detailed command lines (copied from Notepad for example) that automatically copy desired locations and skip unwanted file types, etc.
I'm kind of surprised that it scales to manually visit each desktop in PC replacement scenarios, since they might be 20-40% of PC's you'll move in the next 12-18 months. Would it save you time to have a sample script or command line(s) to repeat with physical desktop interaction, or would you still prefer manual copying?
Well, scripts can fail or they have to be very complex. I find it not so much difficult to just connect to old PC C$, quickly copy paste a few folders and wait for it to copy (over 1 Gbit switch). If it fails on some files (long names, etc.) i can react immediately. With scripts i would have to do some error logging and then check the logs. It might save a few hours in the long run (for all PCs). But as we change 30-50 PCs per year, it's not a big deal in my book. And as i've said we are planning to use OneDrive. We also set a few settings manually (although some are set through a script adding ini files, importing reg files, adding shortcuts, etc.).
Anyway, we still save A LOT of time by cloning (Windows install, apps, drivers). Cloning new PC takes 10 minutes, and installing from scratch can take hours. No, we don't use sysprep, WDS, etc. Just simple exact clone with Clonezilla :)
- JeremyChapmanMSFT
Are you using the new Known Folder Migration or are your users savvy enough to save everything they want to keep in sync'd folders?
I'm using known folder for myself since im on office insider. So I'm just waiting for it to be released into semi-annual so I can announce it to the users (they will be super excited).
But currently we just tell them if you don't save to onedrive its lost because we won't spend the the time to recover.
JeremyChapmanMSFT when is it coming to macOS? thats always the ask I get, for when the mac users can get things the same time as Windows.
