Example Scenarios

Wipe-and-load migration

The following diagram shows a wipe-and-load migration. First, the administrator migrates the user state from a source computer to an intermediate store. After installing the operating system, the administrator migrates the user state back to the source computer.

 

 

For example, a company has just received funds to upgrade all of its computers to Windows Vista. Each employee will keep the same computer, but the operating system on each computer will be reinstalled.

  1. An administrator runs the ScanState command-line tool on each computer. ScanState saves each user state to a server.
  2. On each computer, an administrator installs the company's standard operating environment, which includes Windows Vista, Microsoft Office, and other company applications.
  3. An administrator runs the LoadState command-line tool on each computer. LoadState restores each user state back to the source computer.

Side-by-side migration

The following diagram shows a side-by-side migration. First, the administrator migrates the user state from the source computer to an intermediate store. After installing the operating system on the destination computer, the administrator migrates the user state from the store to the destination computer.

 

 

Scenario one

A company receives 50 new laptops for their managers, and needs to reallocate the 50 older laptops to new employees.

  1. An administrator runs ScanState on each of the old laptops, and saves each user state to a server.
  2. On the new laptops, an administrator installs the company's standard operating environment which includes Windows Vista, Office, and other company applications.
  3. An administrator runs LoadState on the new laptops to migrate the user states to the appropriate computer.
  4. On the old computers, an administrator installs the company's standard operating environment which includes Windows Vista, Office, and other company applications. The old computers are now ready for the new employees to use.

Scenario two

A company is allocating 20 new computers to users in the accounting department. The users all have one computer with their files and settings—the source computer.

  1. On each source computer, an administrator runs ScanState using Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), a non-Microsoft management technology, a logon script, or a batch file. ScanState collects the user state from each source computer and then saves it to a server.
  2. On each new computer, an administrator installs the company's standard operating environment which includes Windows Vista, Office, and other company applications.
  3. On each of the new computers, an administrator runs LoadState using SMS, a non-Microsoft management technology, a logon script, or a batch file. LoadState migrates the user states from the intermediate store to a new computer.