Overview

Article
12/19/2007

This guide is intended to serve as part of Microsoft® Deployment Solution Accelerator. Microsoft Deployment is the next version of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007. This documentation will guide a specialist team through the user state migration tasks using the Windows® User State Migration Tool (USMT). User state migration is part of the larger deployment project and must be managed as such. The objective is to have the decisions that the User State Migration team makes within this initiative align with the overall project goals and have the deliverables well integrated into the total migration project.

Note In this document, Windows applies to Windows Vista®, Windows® XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows Server® 2008, and Windows Server 2003 operating system unless otherwise noted.

It is easy to dismiss saving and retrieving user preferences, but experience shows that users spend significant amounts of time restoring items such as wallpaper, screen savers, and other user interface (UI) customizable features. In addition, most users do not remember how to apply these settings, which increases the loss of productivity. So, although these items are not critical to migration success, migration of these items often increases user productivity and overall satisfaction during the deployment process.

Setting Up the Team

The specialist team responsible for ensuring the success of the user state migration is the Migration feature team. A feature team , as detailed in the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), is a cross-organizational team responsible for solving a defined problem. Within the Microsoft Deployment project, the Migration feature team is one of several feature teams that work with a project management team to accomplish specific tasks. The Migration feature team can be involved with the Microsoft Deployment project as early as the Planning Phase and is involved throughout the Developing and Stabilizing Phases. Some members of the Migration feature team might also transition to the Deploying Phase.

Note The User State Migration team is part of the Migration feature team and concentrates on user state migration specifically for client computers.

Additional Guidance on the MSF Team Model

For additional guidance on the MSF Team Model, see the white paper “MSF Team Model” at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/msf/default.mspx. Additional information about the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) is available at https://www.microsoft.com/mof.

Prerequisites

The deployment project requires the following prerequisites to be in place to ensure the success of user state migration:

USMT 3.0.1.
Compatible operating systems:
- Source computers must be running Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Microsoft Windows 2000.
- Destination computers must be running Windows Vista or Windows XP.
- Available storage space for temporary store files and sufficient space on the destination computer.

In addition, USMT must be run in elevated mode on Windows Vista to ensure all users are migrated. This is required because of Windows Vista User Access Control (UAC) protections.

Assumptions

User State Migration team members should be familiar with the concepts of migrating user state and how those concepts fit into the overall deployment process. This guide assumes that team members will conduct development and test work in a nonproduction lab environment. Because USMT does not require a complex infrastructure, in many cases USMT developers share space and resources in the lab with the developers who are creating the images for deployment. See the Image Engineering Feature Team Guide for details on the lab requirements.

This guide assumes that USMT developers have:

An understanding of USMT and how it works.
An understanding of the navigation and hierarchy of the Windows registry.
An understanding of the files or file types that applications use.
The ability to extract application and settings information manually from internal development groups and software vendors besides Microsoft.

Migration References

Microsoft TechNet and the Microsoft Web site (https://www.microsoft.com) offer white papers and articles that provide additional information and background on USMT. For more information about obtaining and using USMT 3.0.1, see "Deploying Windows Vista" at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/deploy/default.mspx. USMT 3.0.1 is available from the Microsoft Download Center at https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=799AB28C-691B-4B36-B7AD-6C604BE4C595.