Deploy Windows Clients: Upgrade, Clean Install, and Migration

0:00[MUSIC PLAYING]

0:06You know, when it comes to setting up Windows,

0:08we kind of have a tendency to think of it as an installation.

0:12You might have an empty hard drive.

0:13And you've got a NexTech finish your way

0:15through an installation, or find a way

0:16to somewhat automate that.

0:18But really, installation is not the word

0:20that's kind of the most significant word these days

0:24in terms of setting up your clients computers.

0:26Nowadays, really, the word is provisioning.

0:28Because provisioning does not always mean an installation.

0:31There may already be an operating system

0:33on that computer.

0:34Because provisioning, really, is mostly

0:37about getting a computer business ready.

0:39That's the idea here.

0:40So it may have already had an operating system on it.

0:42But it just does not have the tools

0:44that you need, or might not be configured

0:46the way you want to have it, or it might not

0:48have the security profile that you need

0:49it to to be able to implement.

0:51Well, in order to get it there, what can you do?

0:54Well, some of the traditional methods for doing this

0:57would be a fully manual process, really.

0:59So you can start, for example, with a bare metal computer.

1:02And that's just exactly what it sounds like.

1:04There's nothing on the hard drive.

1:06Or if there was something on the hard drive,

1:08then we wiped that device.

1:09Wipe the hard drive clean.

1:11And then we installed Windows clean.

1:13There's still really a good business case

1:15for doing this in various installations,

1:18such as, you might have a computer that's cut off

1:21from the rest of your network.

1:22So you can't use any tools that exist

1:24on your network, such as WDS, which we'll talk

1:26about coming up here shortly.

1:28Or System Center Configuration Manager.

1:30So it might be an isolated computer, a one-off computer.

1:34You'll still have those around.

1:36Or if you're like me, it's your neighbor's computer,

1:38or a relative's computer, that you still-- somehow,

1:42it's your job to install those computers.

1:44Anyway.

1:45Then we can also then join those computers,

1:47in a business sense anyway--

1:49join them, very often, to an on-premises Active Directory

1:52environment.

1:53Now, it could also be Azure Active Directory.

1:56But just in the most conventional sense,

1:57this is often where those kind of installations go.

2:00And when it comes to on-premises tools,

2:02we're really still talking about various tools

2:05that we can use for provisioning,

2:06but it's not necessarily involving the cloud.

2:10So this is still why we say on-premises here.

2:13Now, this will help to implement an installation

2:16in a business-rated computer faster, more efficiently,

2:19once you've set everything up, than a bare metal

2:22type of an installation, or a manual process.

2:24So one of the tools you could use there

2:26would be the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit, or the ADK.

2:30Now, this involves a lot of different kinds of tools

2:33that you can use to, again, get your computers

2:35in a more business-ready state.

2:37One of those would be things like the Compatibility

2:40Administrator that's included with it, a standard user

2:42analyzer tool.

2:44These will help you make sure that your applications will

2:46run with Windows.

2:48There are also several provisioning tools

2:50that you can use to, again, help make your computers

2:53ready for a business environment,

2:55such as WSIM, the Windows System Image Manager.

2:59So that's one of the tools you can also use there.

3:01We'll talk more about that here, coming up.

3:03There's also the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, or the MDT.

3:07This is a very useful set of tools

3:08that can do a lot of different things, such as imaging.

3:11So you can take a reference image,

3:13for example, which is kind of a golden image of a Windows

3:15computer that has everything configured

3:17exactly the way you want it.

3:18And you can make that reference image

3:20available for further installations,

3:22and laying it down onto other installations

3:25throughout your environment.

3:27So that's a very useful tool as well.

3:29And also, WDS, or Windows Deployment Services.

3:32Let's take a look at what that's about.

3:34So with this, I'll have a computer over here

3:36that needs an operating system.

3:38I'll also have a server over here somewhere,

3:40or a file share.

3:41Let's just call it a file share for now.

3:43And it has the Windows installation files on it.

3:46Now, normally, what we would have done in years past,

3:49is we would have had a CD, even floppy disks,

3:53if you go back to Windows 3.1 and so forth.

3:56We'd have some kind of installation media.

3:58Later on, we could use a flash drive for that kind of thing

4:00as well, which is faster and better in most respects.

4:04Did something like a CD.

4:05But anyway.

4:06That's still kind of onerous to have

4:08to carry that around all the time,

4:10keep a flash drive on your keychain, something like that.

4:12And then just go to each individual computer,

4:15and apply that media to the installation.

4:18So Windows Deployment Services, which

4:20is what this would be, you'd have a file server with Windows

4:23files on it.

4:23That would be Windows Deployment Services.

4:26It also involves Active Directory, DNS,

4:30and the ability for this client to boot to the network.

4:35So that's a key part of this.

4:36The client has to be able to have

4:38a network card that's bootable.

4:40So what happens here is, using those tools

4:42that I mentioned, things like DNS and Active Directory,

4:45it locates this WDS server.

4:48And then it downloads the installation files.

4:51Now, this is not an image--

4:52at least, initially.

4:53This is still normal Windows installation files.

4:57It's just that we don't have to use this media anymore.

5:00And we can install any Windows machine

5:03anywhere we want to, as long as it's

5:05in contact with our WDS server.

5:08Now, all of these things so far, at least,

5:11in our current discussion, are not really

5:14zero touch installations.

5:15These are still things where someone

5:17has to actually sit at this computer and boot

5:20to the network card, which, by the way,

5:22may also involve adjusting the BIOS settings

5:24so that it can configure that network card to be bootable,

5:28and to configure it as, maybe, the first boot device.

5:31So that's still somewhat a manual process.

5:33All of this stuff is so far.

5:34Now, if you implement something like System Center

5:37Configuration Manager--

5:38which, by the way, has been rebranded or renamed

5:40as Endpoint Manager, or Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

5:44We'll just call it Endpoint Manager

5:46for most of our purposes.

5:47This is an on premises server here.

5:50So we might have an Endpoint Manager server right here.

5:53And it also can referenced source files

5:57for Windows and so forth.

5:58But the main idea with this is, if I have, let's say,

6:01have an existing Windows 10 computer here,

6:04and I want to upgrade it to Windows 11--

6:08that's still a manual process.

6:09I could use these other tools I've already talked about.

6:12However, if I want it to be a zero touch installation--

6:15or a ZTI, as we often refer to this--

6:19I can use System Center Configuration Manager Endpoint

6:22Manager to be able to do that, because there's

6:25an agent that is on this computer

6:27while it's running Windows 10.

6:28You can schedule it to install Windows 11.

6:31And you can pretty much have an answer

6:33file as well, which could be configured as part of this ADK.

6:37There's a tool there that we can use for this.

6:39WSIM tool.

6:40And then it has all of the installation we need.

6:43Because of the agent, it can trigger an installation.

6:46And because of this answer file, it

6:48can automatically pre-package all of the answers

6:51that you're going to need for that installation.

6:53And then the user comes in the next morning,

6:55and now they have a Windows 11 computer.

6:57Beyond that, of course, you're going to need things

6:59like applications.

7:00So for your Application Management, you can have,

7:02again, Configuration Manager, Endpoint Manager.

7:05You can have Intune.

7:06Those are two tools that could be used to deploy applications.

7:10Endpoint Manager is still the king

7:12of doing that if you're using local installations and locally

7:16connected devices to your corporate network.

7:19Intune is still useful for that.

7:21And it's a great way to do it.

7:23However, that has also got an emphasis

7:25for those computers that might be disconnected

7:28from your main corporate network, home

7:30users, and traveling users, and remote offices,

7:34and things like this.

7:35So those are all methods of installation and provisioning.

7:38There's also still the in-place upgrade.

7:40Remember, we talked about this computer here,

7:42we wanted to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

7:45We used Endpoint Manager for that.

7:47Well, you can still just do an in-place upgrade--

7:50again, using conventional media on a Windows 10 computer,

7:53for example.

7:54And upgrading it to Windows 11.

7:56And in our next Nugget, we'll take a look

7:57at dynamic provisioning.

7:59I hope this has been informative for you.

8:00I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[MUSIC PLAYING]

0:07In our last Nugget, we took a look

0:08at traditional provisioning.

0:10These are tools that we can use, for example,

0:12that would expedite the installation of Windows

0:15computers.

0:16Now, in this Nugget, we're going to be taking a look

0:18at dynamic provisioning, which is largely dependent upon cloud

0:22resources, and is very useful, because you don't always

0:24have connections to your local corporate network.

0:28Now let's talk about dynamic provisioning.

0:31Dynamic provisioning is really something

0:33that we can use that's not necessarily tied

0:35to local on-premises tools.

0:38So with this, we can use tools such as Azure Active Directory.

0:41Now, I do want to point out, these computers that we're

0:44talking about, that were provisioning,

0:46they might be local in our corporate network,

0:49but they don't have to be.

0:50The main idea there is, wherever they're located,

0:53they have a connection to some kind of a cloud resource,

0:56such as Azure Active Directory.

0:58Now, this is where the computer is identified,

1:00and where it's located, where its account can be.

1:03And once it's there, it can also have a configuration

1:06so that it uses Microsoft's MDM solutions, which

1:09is Mobile Device Management.

1:11That's normally going to be what we call Intune.

1:14With Intune, you can configure a lot of different things

1:17about those devices.

1:18You can configure certain kinds of configuration profiles,

1:21which would set-- if you want to think of it this way--

1:24the rules for how that computer operates, what certain security

1:27settings are, various things of this nature.

1:29Lots of things you can do with that.

1:31It's kind of roughly equivalent to Group Policy

1:34objects in an on-premises environment.

1:37But the interface and the way it works

1:39is all completely different.

1:40Anyway, it does the same type of thing.

1:42Then there's also the Windows Configuration Designer.

1:45And with this, we can create what

1:47we call provisioning packages.

1:49A provisioning package is a lot of the questions-- not all

1:53of them-- but a lot of the things

1:54that you would set up in a next, next, finish installation.

1:57We'll be taking a look at provisioning packages

1:59later on, because they're used significantly

2:02in things like Windows Autopilot, which we'll talk

2:04about here coming up as well.

2:05Also coming up, we'll be discussing

2:07something called Automatic Subscription Activation, which

2:10is where you can take one edition of Windows,

2:13like Windows 10 or 11 Pro, and automatically

2:16upgrade it-- or step it up, if you

2:18will-- to Windows 10 or 11 Enterprise,

2:21or Education Edition.

2:22Again, more to be seen on that.

2:24Coming soon to a theater near you.

2:26All right.

2:26There's also Windows Autopilot, which is a fantastic new way

2:30to deploy Windows as well.

2:32This involves an existing installation of Windows.

2:36However, that existing installation of Windows

2:39might be out of scope for what we need.

2:40It might not have kind of the configurations that we need.

2:44It might have leftovers from a previous user

2:47that-- it's just cluttery, if you will.

2:50And we want to reset it to a new, fresh, business-ready

2:54environment.

2:55So that's dynamic provisioning.

2:57I hope this has been informative for you,

2:59and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[MUSIC PLAYING]

0:06Oh, the age old question, should I upgrade or should

0:09I do a clean install?

0:11Generally speaking, an upgrade is going to be easier.

0:14However, you can also inherit some problems.

0:16Whereas, a clean install gives you

0:17a more reliable installation.

0:19But let's go ahead and take a look at some of those details.

0:21And as we take a look at this, you've

0:23got to ask yourself, why would you want to upgrade?

0:26Well, first of all, that is Microsoft's recommendation.

0:28It's really not a bad idea.

0:30In a system that's already working OK--

0:33let's say, under Windows 10, and you

0:34want to upgrade to Windows 11.

0:35If it's OK under Windows 10, then an upgrade to Windows 11

0:39is not a bad idea.

0:41You're not having stability problems.

0:43You're not having problems with drivers.

0:45You're not having malware issues or any other kind

0:48of security concerns there.

0:49If you're all OK here, then you're

0:51probably going to be OK here, provided other things are also

0:55in place, such as the necessary hardware

0:58requirements and things like this.

0:59So with this upgrade, of course, your applications and your data

1:03are going to remain.

1:04And that's the big plus here.

1:06Because reinstalling all of that stuff,

1:08even though there are certain automated ways

1:09of being able to do it, it does require a lot more work

1:14in the background.

1:15You do have to set up a lot more things in advance--

1:17scripts, or some method for installation,

1:21or setting up your Endpoint Manager,

1:22or making sure that everything's set up for Intune properly,

1:27for any applications you have there.

1:28You're probably going to be doing that anyway.

1:30But again, it helps you to avoid that, at least at this stage.

1:33Also, most profile settings are going to persist.

1:37Now, the exception to that could be, for example,

1:40if you have certain Start menu properties that

1:44don't translate over.

1:45For example, we had that one we went from--

1:47what was it?

1:48If you upgraded from Windows 7 and you

1:50made your way into Windows 8.1, for example.

1:53Well, the Start menus are different.

1:55So not everything would have translated over there.

1:57But the most important parts of that, the applications

2:00themselves, and the data, that's really mostly

2:02what we're concerned about anyway.

2:03Largely, the Start menu is mostly UI items.

2:06And if necessary, there are administrative settings

2:09that you can configure that set up a pre-configured Start

2:13menu with, for example, shortcuts

2:15that IT wants to be there for your users anyway.

2:18So that is possible.

2:19Now, if you do this upgrade from,

2:21let's say, again, Windows 10 to Windows 11,

2:24and you run into some problems, you

2:26do have 10 days to repent from that bad decision.

2:30OK?

2:31I wish I had at least 10 days for some of the decisions

2:34I've made.

2:34Anyway.

2:35So you get at least 10 days there.

2:37However, if you decide that you want more time--

2:40and this is very useful, especially when

2:42you're in the initial testing stages with IT--

2:44then you can decide to use a command like this.

2:47And honestly, I can't remember the acronym.

2:49Deployment imaging and servicing management,

2:52or something like this.

2:53But it's a command line tool.

2:54And you just run this as administrator.

2:56DISM.

2:57And then Online.

2:58And then set OS Uninstall Window.

3:01And then the value of 60.

3:03And when you set this value, then that

3:05will give you up to 60 days.

3:06And that's the maximum you can go.

3:08Now, there's a disadvantage to this.

3:11And that would simply be that, what

3:12it does is it retains all of your previous operating

3:15system in an old folder here.

3:19And that old folder contains all of that previous operating

3:22systems.

3:22So, obviously, that's going to take up

3:24quite a bit of disk space.

3:26Now, if you've got an abundance of disk space anyway,

3:29there's really no downside to that.

3:31But on some systems-- maybe a Surface Book Pro, for example--

3:34that usually is going to have a little bit less hard drive

3:37space-- or not really hard drive, but storage space--

3:40than you would have on a normal desktop

3:42computer with 2 terabytes of hard drive or something

3:45like that.

3:46Well, on a Surface Book or some other kind of a mobile device,

3:49you might only have 512 gigabytes, or 1 terabyte.

3:52And it really might not be enough in some instances.

3:54So you just have to gauge that out for your own situation.

3:58There's something else that occurred to me.

4:00There's also a registry value.

4:01Let me look for it real quick, and I'll show it to you.

4:04But there's registry value here that you can also

4:05do this setting for.

4:06That way, you don't have to script that.

4:07You can also put the registry value in, maybe,

4:09a policy of some kind, and have that distributed as well.

4:12Just as a second option.

4:13And so you can see what I've done here,

4:14is I've gone into the Registry Editor, which

4:16you can do from going to a command line

4:19and typing reg edit, or just typing in search,

4:21and typing reg edit and pressing Enter.

4:23And then here you can see where I've gone.

4:25I've gone to hkeylocalmachine system, and then setup.

4:29And then down here under setup, I

4:31went over here and created a new 32-bit dword value here,

4:36called UninstallWindow as one word.

4:39Now once I did that, I double clicked on it to edit it.

4:41You can see that it goes to hexadecimal

4:43once I've entered in the value.

4:44But that's the value of 60.

4:46It's easier if you just click decimal, and type 60,

4:50and click OK.

4:51And then that'll get you what you need right there.

4:53So the value there is you can Enter these values,

4:55whether you use DISM or the registry value,

4:57you can Enter this in a script, or in a policy, whether it's

5:01a policy from a configuration profile in Azure,

5:04or whether you do it using a plain old group policy object.

5:07Either way.

5:07So anyway, that's one of the things that you can do here.

5:10Now, some other tips for you as you

5:12look into performing an upgrade would

5:14be, you usually want to apply the most recent updates.

5:17That's just going to help smooth the path into an upgrade.

5:20There might be some things that will stop you

5:22from being able to perform an upgrade until certain updates

5:26have been applied.

5:27Also, you want to back up your data.

5:29Now, since it's an upgrade, you're

5:31supposed to already keep your data.

5:32Remember, I already promised you that.

5:34However, you just never know, people.

5:37So just as an IT precaution, which many of us

5:41have been burned in the past, from thinking

5:43that we're going to be able to keep data

5:45when it really doesn't happen.

5:46Just back up that data anyway.

5:48Now, for many of you, that's already done automatically

5:51in a certain way, anyway.

5:52Because you might have your users using a centralized home

5:55directory, for example, which is on a network server, which

5:59already gets backed up on a regular basis,

6:01or something similar to that.

6:03So you may already have that in place.

6:05Also, test your applications in advance as well.

6:08You'll want to do this on an IT level.

6:11As you're testing things out, just

6:12get a sampling, a representative sampling

6:15of all the applications you used across your departments.

6:18And for larger organizations, that

6:20can be hundreds or thousands of applications, people.

6:24So, normally, we'll do this in an IT organization.

6:28We'll do this per department.

6:29So you don't have to do all of those applications yourselves

6:32in most organizations.

6:33You have some departments that are run by a certain IT groups,

6:37and they will test those, and so forth.

6:38So it does get split up.

6:39Might make it a little bit easier

6:41than having to do dozens or hundreds of those,

6:44or thousands.

6:45You also check the hardware compatibility, obviously.

6:48The big stops there, as we saw, for Windows, especially

6:52for a Windows 8 or 8.1, or 10 to 11,

6:55is a Trusted Platform Module, TPM chip.

6:58That's one of the big stops there.

7:00And again, of course, you need to have

7:01at least two CPUs and 4 gigs of RAM to get up to Windows 11.

7:06There may also be other hardware compatibility issues though.

7:09You might have some older hardware

7:11in some of your machines, which is just not

7:12compatible with Windows 11.

7:15So you'll want to check that out.

7:16Now, generally speaking, your existing hardware and software,

7:20if they worked OK under Windows 10,

7:22then they will probably work just as fine under Windows 11.

7:26But always, again, there's going to be

7:28certain exceptions to that.

7:29But generally speaking, you'll be fine with that.

7:32All right.

7:33So that's what we have for upgrades to Windows 11.

7:37I hope this has been informative for you,

7:38and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[MUSIC PLAYING]

0:07In our last Nugget, we took a look

0:08at whether you could do an upgrade.

0:10And remember, an upgrade is going

0:11to require that you have, of course, the necessary hardware

0:14requirements in place.

0:16Now, what we're going to do here is

0:17take a look at a certain test that you can run,

0:20running from the Windows 11 installation media.

0:22And it will test your system to see

0:24if you are indeed compatible enough to perform an upgrade.

0:28Now, you can see here that what I've done in order to do this,

0:30is I've gone ahead and downloaded the installation

0:33media from Windows 11.

0:35And it's an ISO file.

0:37And you can download that as well yourself.

0:38It's easy to Google or to find from a Microsoft website.

0:42Here, I just double click on that ISO file,

0:45which in Windows will automatically

0:47mount it to a drive letter.

0:49This is mounted to drive E, as you can see right here.

0:53Now, don't run setup here.

0:55We always have a reflexive action

0:58to just want to click on setup.

0:59Don't do that here, because that's not

1:01going to be what we want.

1:02What we really want to do here is to, yes, run setup,

1:05but to run it from a command line,

1:07like what you see right here.

1:09And again, this is simply a test of setup.

1:12It's not going to actually run setup.

1:13So we'll run setup.exe.

1:15And we're going to do--

1:17I think all of these switches explain themselves,

1:19and what they do.

1:20But the main idea that we're looking for here

1:22is this last switch for compatibility only.

1:25And you can see what that's going to do,

1:26is it's going to check for compatibility.

1:28And it's only really going to scan the system.

1:31So in other words, it's not going to install Windows.

1:33It's going to do a what-if scenario.

1:36So if we were to install Windows,

1:38what would the circumstances be?

1:40Would it be compatible?

1:41Now, this may take anywhere between, really,

1:44just a few seconds to run, up to maybe five minutes to run.

1:47I've already run mine in advance.

1:49So we don't have to wait for it.

1:50And what we'll have here is, it'll

1:53create a directory for you here.

1:54Let me go ahead and show it to you.

1:56On your Windows drive, it'll create this directory.

1:59Dollar sign Windows dot tilde BT.

2:03Don't really know what the BT stands for, but there it is.

2:06And then there's going to be a Sources folder.

2:08And inside the Sources folder is a Panther folder.

2:11And that's where we are right now.

2:13Don't know why it's called Panther.

2:14I think there was a previous version of Windows,

2:17the code name was Panther.

2:18So that's probably what they just stuck with.

2:19They just never changed it.

2:21Now, what you'll see here is a number of different files.

2:23There's really only a couple of files that are useful for us

2:26in terms of determining what they are.

2:29One of those would be the setup activity dot log file.

2:33And I've got that open right here.

2:34Now, there's not a lot of this that is very readable.

2:37It's kind of difficult to wade your way through.

2:40It will explain itself to you.

2:42But the main idea here in terms of compatibility,

2:45with hardware at least-- is as we scroll down,

2:47we should see this section right here.

2:50And we can see from this, how much memory we have,

2:53for example.

2:53And this is in bytes.

2:54So you've got to do the math.

2:56But that's basically a gigabyte of RAM.

2:59Some of you already see a problem here, don't you?

3:02Also, how many physical CPUs and how many cores?

3:05One.

3:06So some of you are seeing another problem

3:08there, aren't you?

3:09So anyway, let's take a look at another file

3:12that will give us a little bit more readable information here.

3:14And that will be this ScanResult.xml file

3:18that you see right here.

3:20This file will take the results, and put it into an XML file.

3:23And I wish they would put this in an HTML file.

3:26I mean, they already have an XML.

3:28So it shouldn't be that hard to do.

3:29But they don't really give that to us.

3:31Nevertheless, this is at least something

3:33that we can work with.

3:34And if I zoom in here a little bit more,

3:35you can see this will kind of give us the bare essentials.

3:38Oh, I closed it instead of zooming in.

3:40Let me try that again.

3:41Here it is.

3:42And so as I zoom in here, this gives us

3:44a summary of the most essential items

3:46that are interesting for us.

3:48Now, one of the things you really want to look for

3:50is the word hard.

3:52And you can see down here that it already

3:54identifies that CPU cores is not sufficient.

3:58Because remember, in Windows 11, in order to perform an upgrade,

4:02you're going to need to have at least two cores.

4:04And you need to have how much memory?

4:074 gigabytes of memory.

4:08How much do we have?

4:101 gigabyte of memory.

4:11That's another hard stop right there.

4:14Now, this machine has a TPM, but that would be a very useful one

4:17to look for as well.

4:18Because many of, especially of older machines,

4:21or very inexpensive computers, might not have a TPM.

4:25And they will also give you a hard stop for a TPM

4:28in this same file.

4:30So, obviously, you're not going to run that on every computer

4:32you'll have, but you'll probably run that

4:34on a representative sampling.

4:35So if all of your accounting computers

4:37use a specific model of Dell, or two or three models of Dell--

4:42run that on two or three models of those Dells,

4:44and see what the results are to see if you have compatibility

4:48issues there.

4:49But still a useful tool to go through and see

4:52if there are any other incompatibilities present.

4:55All right.

4:55I hope this has been informative for you,

4:57and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:06And remembering upgrades is a great way

0:08to make sure that you can keep all your data, your settings,

0:11your applications without having to reconfigure and reinstall

0:14all of those things.

0:16However, it's not always the best case in a business sense

0:19because there might be certain problems that you would inherit

0:22in an upgrade that we want to avoid

0:24if we do a clean install, also known as a rebuild.

0:27And so let's take a look at why we might want to rebuild.

0:31Well, first of all, you might have problems

0:33with apps and hardware.

0:34So if you have existing problems with, say, an application

0:38and it's not just on a very specific computer

0:41with specific hardware, it seems to happen a lot

0:44across a lot of different systems of varying

0:48types of hardware and varying different kinds of use,

0:50well, the first thing there is you

0:52probably need to reconfigure that app

0:54or get a replacement app for that.

0:56But I just want you to be aware in advance

0:58if you have problems with that app,

1:00it's going to be inherited in a upgrade or a rebuild.

1:05So it's not going to be a magic bullet

1:07to just upgrade to Windows 11.

1:09Similarly, with hardware, if you've

1:11got persistent problems across multiple machines

1:14with a particular piece of hardware that you have,

1:17again, you're likely to just inherit that problem.

1:19So be aware.

1:20Also, periodic app and driver updates

1:23are more likely to resolve this.

1:25So when you first have Windows 11, for example, come out,

1:29there may be vendors out there that don't quite yet have

1:31the latest drivers that would best support Windows 11.

1:35Now to be fair, most drivers that work with Windows 10

1:38work great with Windows 11, but some might not.

1:41So if you just give it a little bit of time

1:43and see if your vendor comes out with an update that's

1:45particularly useful for Windows 11,

1:47you might be able to avoid that problem in an upgrade.

1:50But otherwise, if you have either an application that's

1:53been giving you problems, if it has an update,

1:55well, that might resolve it with Windows 11 specifically.

1:59Similarly, you might have hardware

2:00that's not working well.

2:01But remember, the hardware is only as good as the driver

2:04because if the driver is not any good,

2:06it can't interoperate with the operating system.

2:08So if you have a driver update as well that

2:11might help to resolve that problem,

2:13then check for that as well.

2:14Now, and then if you have persistent problems

2:16with either one of those things, you probably

2:18just going to have to consider other products.

2:20You're not going to get it fixed with a simple upgrade

2:22to Windows 11.

2:24Also, you might have inconsistent performance

2:26and reliability problems with your machines.

2:30And that happens with Windows.

2:32And it's to be expected, because it

2:34goes through months and years of different users using

2:37that machine perhaps and using it in different ways

2:40and having lots of leftovers from various applications

2:43and things that just get cluttered on that machine.

2:45That's a big word for it, really, by the way.

2:47They just get cluttery.

2:49Then you might have inconsistent performance and reliability,

2:52because it drifts away from the baseline.

2:55So we started here with Windows 10,

2:57let's say, three years ago, let's say.

3:00And then as time has gone by, we have more

3:03personalization to it, more clutter that comes up on it.

3:07Our boot times get slower.

3:10Our crashes become more frequent.

3:13And so it's just time, it's just time for a clean rebuild.

3:18You might also have multiple generations of upgrades.

3:20I mean, you might have started with Windows 7,

3:22and then you went to 8, and you realized

3:24what a mistake that was.

3:25And then you went to Windows 8.1, which in my opinion

3:28really wasn't that much better than 9,

3:30but I'm an outlier in that opinion.

3:32And then from 8.1, you went to 10.

3:34Well, how many generations is that

3:36so far before we even hit 11?

3:37That's 1, 2, 3, 4 generations of Windows before you even

3:42get to Windows 11.

3:43So if you've got multiple generations going on there,

3:47it might just be time quite honestly.

3:49And that's not very scientific to say it that way,

3:52but that's because there's not a lot of science

3:55in knowing what can get inherited all along the way

3:57here.

3:58Again, we want to get back down to this baseline

4:02as much as we can.

4:03Or you might also want just simpler troubleshooting

4:05and support, again, because we're

4:06able to get to this baseline right here.

4:09It's a known, consistent, steady state

4:12of where our operating system is.

4:15And we've tested our applications with it.

4:17We test our hardware with it, and everything

4:19seems to be golden.

4:21Well, we can start from there.

4:22Another reason why might be you have persistent malware issues.

4:28This can happen where you have some systems that get infected,

4:32and they seem to get infected over and over again.

4:34Or the same viruses or malware seem to keep popping up.

4:38A lot of these malware these days

4:39is very, very sophisticated, and it can regenerate itself

4:43even after you clean it up.

4:44So it's very tricky.

4:46And with things like persistent malware,

4:48I like to just nuke the whole thing and start all over again.

4:51Also, you might not really have a desire or a need

4:54to retain files and/or settings.

4:56This might be especially the case

4:58if you have computers that are, let's say,

5:00in a lobby, that are for public use,

5:03or you're in a public library.

5:05You don't keep personal users files on there

5:08or applications for individual users or anything like that,

5:11or trade show machines that you use,

5:14or demo computers, that sort of thing.

5:16Well, you don't really need to create or keep

5:19persistent user files on that.

5:21That might be one case.

5:22Or if it is something where you have user files

5:25but they're backed up or their data is all centralized anyway.

5:28They don't really keep individual files

5:31on the local computer.

5:32It's all stored on a network drive,

5:34or it's all stored in OneDrive or Dropbox

5:37or some other consistent corporate solution

5:40to retain that user's data.

5:42And finally, by the way, it might really just

5:45be peace of mind.

5:47Especially if you're in this situation where you've

5:49had multiple upgrades all through the years

5:51and not even sure what version of the operating system

5:54you started with anymore, then you

5:57might just have more peace of mind getting to this baseline

6:01so that you have a known starting point.

6:03Now, there is another consideration here.

6:05What if upgrading is not the best solution for you?

6:08At the same time, a rebuild or clean install,

6:11that's not ideal for you either.

6:13Guess what?

6:13You have a third option.

6:15There's some other considerations here.

6:16One of the things you could do would be

6:18to use something like app-VIVE.

6:19So maybe you have applications that

6:22are too top heavy to consuming in terms of the resources

6:27that they require to run on your current Windows 8.1 computer.

6:31So this is let's say 8.1.

6:32And this is your taskbar area and your start menu.

6:35And you really can't run that application on 8.1.

6:38Maybe there's a new version that is just

6:40choking out Windows 8.1.

6:42It just won't do it.

6:42You don't have the CPU.

6:44You don't have the memory.

6:45Well, guess what?

6:46You can do something like app-VIVE.

6:48So with app-VIVE, your applications

6:50are actually stored on an application server of type

6:53in that VIVE server.

6:54And you might have app 1, let's call it,

6:57that's just very, very demanding,

6:59and this 8.1 computer can't run it.

7:01What you can do is you can use that VIVE.

7:03And what happens is the user will click on the Start menu,

7:05and then the application will appear right here.

7:08And they click on it the same way

7:09they would if it were installed on their local computer.

7:12And it opens and it runs really pretty much the same as

7:16if they installed it on their local computer.

7:19But it's not installed on their local computer.

7:21Really, what's happening is it gets

7:23streamed from this app-VIVE server.

7:26And really, the user is little the wiser.

7:29They might not even know that it's really

7:31being streamed at all.

7:32Similarly, you can use UE-V, which is the User Experience

7:35Virtualization, UE-V. There might

7:38be a UE-V server over here.

7:40And that takes the user's personal desktop experience,

7:43and it also transports it over here.

7:46So really, their entire visual experience

7:49can be streamed from a different server here.

7:51Likewise, you can have them RDP to a virtual machine.

7:54So I might have a Hyper-V server over here

7:57with a bunch of different virtual machines on it.

8:00And the users over here on their really crusty old desktop, they

8:04just launch an RDP client.

8:06And it will transport, if you will,

8:08the entire desktop experience to their desktop here.

8:11So they could get the performance benefit

8:14of lots of hardware on this Hyper-V server,

8:16even though they're running a very slow, old computer here,

8:19for example.

8:20And by the way, it doesn't really

8:21have to be all that slow and all that old.

8:23It might just be cheap, might be new but with very minimal

8:27hardware on it, and you don't really

8:29want to load it up on each individual desktop.

8:31It's probably most cost effective.

8:37It's probably more cost effective for you

8:38to just load up the Hyper-V server instead.

8:42Also, you could use something like Windows 365.

8:45Actually, I think I have one of those still licensed.

8:48So let me go in and show that to you.

8:49So here you can see I've simply gone to windows365.com.

8:54And that takes us to this page here.

8:56We can choose that we want a Windows 365 desktop to run.

9:00Now what I'll be able to do with this

9:02is to run the entire desktop experience from a browser

9:05if I want to.

9:06Or I can use an RDP connection to the desktop.

9:11So anyway, I'm going to go ahead and log in here

9:13because I have a license for one of my accounts.

9:15And you can see that it starts up my desktop experience here.

9:18Let me get out of the way.

9:20You can see here what I've got, I've

9:21got a Windows 11 computer provisioned.

9:25I've got two virtual CPUs, 8 gigs of RAM.

9:27You can choose different sizes for this

9:29if that doesn't meet all the needs that you have.

9:32And then I can open this in a browser.

9:34From here, I can also do a number of other things,

9:36such as restart it, restore it to a previous point in time.

9:39It creates a little backup snapshots,

9:41if you will, so very handy little tools there.

9:44But the basic idea here is I'll just open this up in a browser

9:46right now and make a connection.

9:48And then now you can see I'm running my entire Windows

9:51desktop experience in a browser here.

9:54I got a Start menu.

9:55I got any applications that I may have installed here.

9:58It also retains any settings or work

10:01that I was doing previously.

10:03So for example, last time I was making this connection,

10:05I can't remember what I was doing,

10:06but apparently I had a command prompt open here.

10:08Apparently I wasn't doing very much, par for the course.

10:12I was doing something else.

10:14Oh, this is WSIM, I think.

10:15Yeah, so I was using Windows System Image Manager.

10:18Doesn't really matter what I was using.

10:19The point that I'm telling you here

10:21is simply that it retained whatever I was doing here,

10:24and I can disconnect from it and reconnect to it

10:27and immediately resume what I was doing.

10:29It's not like I have to start all over again

10:31with an empty desktop.

10:33I can go to a full desktop if I want

10:34to with this thing right here, full screen.

10:36And I can collapse this toolbar if I

10:37don't like it being in the way.

10:39The basic idea here is, I get an entire Windows 11 environment

10:42here regardless of the operating system actually running

10:46on this host.

10:47And by the way, as you can tell, if you

10:48know how to look for this, you can

10:50tell I'm running a Mac operating system here

10:52by looking at these little buttons

10:54up here in the toolbar area.

10:55I'm actually doing this on my MacBook Pro.

10:58So there are some ideas for why you

11:00might want to perform a rebuild, also known as a clean install,

11:03and also ways that you can get around doing either one,

11:07really.

11:08I hope this has been informative for you,

11:09and I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:06When we send out announcements to our users

0:08that there's about to be some kind of an upgrade,

0:10a lot of times there's this collective moan from everybody,

0:13oh no, not another upgrade.

0:15Why is that?

0:16Well, a couple of reasons.

0:17Number one, people are kind of resistant to change.

0:19And a lot of times, an upgrade, whether it's

0:21an operating system or a new application,

0:22may involve new features that they

0:24have to learn, a new y that they have to learn,

0:26things like this.

0:27But more importantly, really is the loss of data.

0:31And if you've ever lost data, you

0:32know how devastating that can be.

0:34Now, one of the problems that we run into there

0:37is also the user's preferences.

0:39That's another thing that we want

0:41to try to keep if we possibly can.

0:43Now it might sound a little trivial or trite that oh,

0:47so they lost their wallpaper a big deal

0:50or they had a shortcut that went missing on the desktop.

0:52But in reality, that can turn into also data

0:56and productivity.

0:58For example, do you know anybody that has

1:00lots of icons on their desktop?

1:01Sure.

1:02Those icons might not just be shortcuts.

1:04They might also be data files.

1:06Now we tell our users don't store data on your desktop.

1:10Keep it in your home directory or OneDrive

1:12or some centrally stored file server

1:15where we can back up your data.

1:17But a lot of times, they don't listen to us.

1:19Nevertheless, we still have to be as responsible as we can

1:22to try to collect that data.

1:24So I have some friends of mine that

1:25have enormously cluttered desktops with lots

1:29of icons on the desktop.

1:30And I just decided to do a Google search

1:32for cluttered desktop.

1:34And look what I came up with.

1:35Look at all this stuff.

1:36This is amazing.

1:38Oh, look at this one.

1:39Oh, my gosh.

1:40Well, let's click.

1:41I can't resist.

1:42I got to click on this thing.

1:43Where is this?

1:45Oh, it's from Seventeen Magazine.

1:46OK, great.

1:47Well, that explains a lot.

1:50You'd have to move icons out of the way just

1:52to get the stuff that's underneath some of this stuff.

1:54Boy, well.

1:55Maybe we can take a closer look at this

1:57and then take a little quiz on how

1:59to know if it's just a crush or true love.

2:01Anyway, the point I make there is we

2:04need to retain the data as much as possible.

2:06And there are some good migration tools

2:08that can do this.

2:09There are third-party products as well.

2:10But included with free downloads that you

2:12can get from Microsoft, you can use the Windows ADK,

2:16and that kit includes something called the User State Migration

2:20Tool or USMT.

2:22Now this is primarily a large scale migration tool.

2:25There are other tools that could be used to perform migrations,

2:29especially if you're in a one off kind of a situation.

2:31In fact, actually let me show you.

2:33I think I have the tab open.

2:34Go back to a Seventeen Magazine thing.

2:36Let me just close this stuff.

2:38Back in earlier days of Windows, they

2:40used to have this thing called the Windows Easy Transfer.

2:43What you would do is you would take a USB cable,

2:45and it was a crossover USB cable.

2:47So it'd be one USB to another without a hub in the middle.

2:50You just connect two computers together.

2:53So you got a new computer, for example,

2:55and you've got a new operating system on it.

2:57You can transfer everything from say Window--

3:00Windows 7 to Windows 8.1.

3:02And then it would supposedly transfer all of your data

3:04and your settings over there.

3:05Well, they don't support that starting with Windows 10,

3:08as you can see here.

3:09So they have, we can see this, partnered with Laplink,

3:13as you can see right here, to give us something

3:16called PC Mover Express.

3:17This is kind of interesting, though, by the way.

3:19You click on PC Mover Express, and it takes you over here.

3:24This is a company called Laplink.

3:26And they used to be really--

3:27they used to really specialized in migrating over

3:30all of this stuff, all this kind of data.

3:32So this is not useful for a large scale.

3:34But if you need to do a one off or you're

3:36disconnected from a network or you've

3:38got to upgrade your neighbor's computer,

3:40this might be a solution.

3:41And I've used them years and years ago.

3:43Oh, by the way, look.

3:44Trusted for over 40 years.

3:47What were they doing 40 years ago?

3:49Jeez, 40 years ago, I was using one

3:51of these things, a RadioShack TRS 80 for goodness sakes.

3:56I'm not sure what they could have been doing back then.

3:58That's a long ways back.

3:59Anyway, what does this tool do?

4:00Well, it uses XML files.

4:03And these XML files will then specify any user accounts

4:06that are on that computer.

4:07So this is for local user accounts.

4:10And you will possibly have some local ones.

4:13Could be administrative accounts.

4:14But for some reason or another, you

4:15might have local accounts as opposed to domain accounts.

4:18Usually, of course domain accounts

4:20are going to be better.

4:21And for the corporation, that's mostly

4:23what you're going to be having anyway.

4:24But if there are any there, you can collect those,

4:27and then those can be migrated over.

4:29Also the user files, so anything in their documents

4:33folder, for example, all of their normal data storage

4:36that they could have locally can also be migrated.

4:40Once again, of course, they should

4:42keep it all in their home directory

4:44and network shares, whatever.

4:45Doesn't always happen that way, though.

4:46So hopefully, we can collect all of that.

4:49All of the operating system and application settings.

4:52Now there are some caveats to that.

4:53In the operating system, there's not always

4:56a one-to-one correlation.

4:57So for example, in some previous versions of Windows,

5:00the smart menu-- the Start menu.

5:03Hopefully, it's smart.

5:04The Start menu would have a different layout and things.

5:07And so sometimes there were some things

5:09that wouldn't transfer over.

5:10But it's somewhat of a minor concession.

5:13And the application settings, particularly

5:15with things like Microsoft Office,

5:16they might have customized toolbars

5:19that they've painstakingly put together.

5:22And especially if they're in a specialized area.

5:24Engineering, scientific purposes, medical,

5:27might also have customized dictionaries, all

5:30that kind of stuff.

5:31Users sometimes take a long time to put together

5:34a really customized set of things that

5:37have to be there, that makes their job easier.

5:39Now then what kind of a migration could occur here?

5:41Well, a migration really--

5:43let's differentiate that as well from a clean install.

5:46A clean install does not really consider previous data,

5:50previous users as much as a migration would.

5:54By and large, a migration is still a clean install

5:57or very often it is.

5:58However, with a migration, you retain all the users data.

6:01So if let's say here, for example,

6:03we have an original operating system, the OG.

6:05And it's got all the users settings and data,

6:09stuff like that, right?

6:10Well, what we could do is we could

6:12have maybe a new computer.

6:13Maybe this original computer they

6:15had some since Windows 7 or something and it's got one CPU,

6:19it's got two gigs of RAM, and it can't be upgraded,

6:22all the slots are already taken.

6:24And it's just not a practical idea to upgrade that machine.

6:26Well, now we have the new computer,

6:29and let's say that this is a shiny new HP, still

6:31in the plastic and everything.

6:33And we want to take all of this user settings over there.

6:35Well, we can use USMT to transfer the data.

6:38How can we do that?

6:39A couple of different ways.

6:40Well, we could plug-in, for example, a USB flash drive,

6:45use the USMT to copy everything to the USB flash drive.

6:48And then, of course, plug that same USB flash

6:50drive into the new computer.

6:52And using USMT tools, copy the data

6:55in to the new operating system that exists over on HP.

6:59So again, maybe this would be Windows 8.1.

7:01Maybe this new computer is Windows 11, for example.

7:05Now using a USB, that's OK on a one-off basis

7:08or a very seldom used basis.

7:10But more than likely, we're really

7:11going to put all of that stuff, all of the user settings,

7:14and so forth up onto a file server here.

7:17And then we just copy it down here to the next destination.

7:21Now that was a side-by-side type of an installation.

7:24Maybe we also could use a wipe and load.

7:26So a wipe and load would use a single computer here.

7:30This is our OG.

7:31But it's gotten kind of stale.

7:32It still has enough hardware to run Windows 11 and everything.

7:36But it's been upgraded many times.

7:37Maybe we started with I don't know, Vista--

7:40that's going back, to 7.

7:41And I can't even remember which one came first right offhand.

7:44But then we went to 8.

7:45And then we went to 8.1.

7:47And then we went to 10.

7:48And then now what we want to do is to upgrade to Windows 11.

7:52But that would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 generations of operating

7:57systems before we even get to Windows 11.

8:00It's bound to be cluttered with all kinds of junk.

8:03That's just kind of how Windows is.

8:04So we might be a little uncomfortable

8:06with just upgrading that particular computer.

8:09If it was just from Windows 10 to 11,

8:10probably not too big a deal, or even 8.1.

8:12This is too many, though.

8:13So what we can do with this is we could take all of the data,

8:17all the user's preferences, all the user's data,

8:19and everything, and put that usually again on a file share.

8:22Could be a thumb drive.

8:23But probably a file share.

8:24And then what we do is we just nuke this computer.

8:29We wipe the hard drive out.

8:30And then what we'll do is we'll install the operating system

8:33again.

8:34Whatever this new Windows 11.

8:36And we copy all the data back down here.

8:39And then they retain everything, including hopefully any files,

8:43any data files that they had, and all of those

8:45shortcuts on their desktop.

8:46By the way, I'm going to demonstrate some

8:48of this in our next Nugget.

8:49And there will be a lab for that as well if you also

8:51want to try this out.

8:53There's also Scanstate.

8:55And Scanstate is part of this whole process.

8:57That's what collects the data from the user off of one

9:01computer and prepares it to, put on another computer

9:04or restore it to the same computer in a wipe and load.

9:07So it gathers all the profile and data.

9:10And load state is the other tool.

9:12These are executables.

9:14We'll then apply that data.

9:16So you'll see this in some scripts

9:17that I have ready for us to use.

9:19Not really scripts.

9:19It's just command line commands that I've pretyped for you

9:24in our next lab.

9:25Now this could be best suited in a scripted environment.

9:29So you can deploy a script.

9:32Maybe you have some kind of an automation solution

9:34that you use.

9:34Maybe use endpoint management of some kind.

9:37You can send out a script or even policy,

9:39I guess, send out a script to copy everybody's data

9:43some night before the upgrade.

9:44Has to be pretty soon before the actual upgrade

9:47takes place, though.

9:48The reason for that is because if you give it

9:50too much time like a month or something, then

9:53there's a lot of new files that can be copied to the desktop

9:57or into their documents folder, or a lot of other changes

9:59that could occur.

10:00We could experience some loss that way.

10:02But even if it's immediately before,

10:04there's still a very, very narrow window

10:05that someone could have copied a file right at the last minute

10:09that we missed.

10:09But you want to do it as schedule

10:11as soon as you can immediately before deployment.

10:14That's the best way to go with this.

10:16Now this can also be run in offline mode.

10:18It's a little bit of a more obscure use of these tools.

10:22But this would be the case, for example,

10:23if we tried to do an upgrade and it was unsuccessful.

10:26But it copied all the users data into Windows old.

10:30That'll exist, remember, we do have an old folder there

10:34that we can roll back our upgrade from within 10

10:38days by default. And we can extend that to 60.

10:41So you can take the USMT, have a peek into the windows.old,

10:46pull the data out of there and the user preferences out

10:48of there.

10:49And then do a wipe and load.

10:50Maybe that would be a better solution

10:52if it had a failed upgrade, for example, in that instance.

10:55You can also run this during WinPE.

10:58Remember, WinPE also has a command line window

11:01that you can open.

11:02And you can start to run these commands directly

11:04from within WenPE.

11:05And so that might help to abbreviate your workflow there

11:09as well.

11:09Now stick around for the next Nugget.

11:11We're going to go ahead and take a look

11:12at how to do this in a lab.

11:14I hope this has been informative for you.

11:15And I'd like to thank you for viewing.

0:00[AUDIO LOGO]

0:07All right, in our last Nugget, we

0:08took a look at the User State Migration Tool

0:10and what its purpose is.

0:11Remember, the main purpose of it is

0:12to migrate users settings and data into a safe place

0:17and then put it back on either the same computer

0:20or some other destination computer.

0:22Now, what we're going to do here is to simulate the use of that.

0:25I do have a lab for you here.

0:26I recommend you go ahead and start it now

0:28if you want to follow along using the lab.

0:30Also, though, as another option, some people

0:33prefer to just watch through the video

0:35first and then follow along in the lab on a second viewing.

0:39That way you just get a better scope

0:41of where the whole thing is going.

0:43And also, it might be a little hard

0:44to keep up because there are several minutes where there's

0:47just empty time where I'm just waiting for something

0:50to process while I edit that out.

0:52But you don't have that, of course,

0:54when you're following along.

0:56All right, and then here we have our lab loaded up.

0:59Now, I have two domain controllers here and a Windows

1:0211 computer.

1:03Now, I do want to point out, it really

1:05doesn't matter which operating system I'm using.

1:07I could be using Windows 10.

1:08I could be using Windows 11.

1:10What I'm going to really be doing here

1:11is to simulate the migration.

1:14So this could be either operating system.

1:17And what I'm going to do is to simulate

1:19taking a user's settings and data from one profile

1:23to another.

1:23Really, I'm just going to transfer everything

1:25to a different user, which, by the way,

1:27is also another use of this particular tool

1:30because you might have a user that's left the company,

1:33but the new user that's replacing

1:34them has to have all of their files

1:36has to have all of their shortcuts

1:39and all of their settings on their desktop and applications.

1:42So we're not going to be using DC01 directly.

1:44We do have a file share there that we'll

1:46be accessing over UNC path.

1:48Then we have another domain controller.

1:50It's a peer domain controller running.

1:51We don't need to use that here either.

1:53But we will go to Win11-01 and log on.

1:57Now, if it doesn't come up immediately

1:59with this logon for PhoenixUser01,

2:01hit Control-Alt-Delete.

2:02And then Enter in PhoenixUser01 to log on with.

2:05It may appear down here.

2:06Otherwise, you'll have to type it in.

2:08But I think it should appear just like this.

2:10Now, once you've done that, you can just either type

2:12in the password that you see over here to the right.

2:14Or the easy way to do it is to just click it,

2:17and it'll automatically paste in the password for us here.

2:20And then I'll just finish the logon.

2:22Another thing I'm going to be doing here as well

2:24is I'm going to split this off.

2:25Notice that I'm clicking the little hamburger

2:27stack up here in the upper right.

2:28And I'm go ahead and split Windows.

2:30The reason why I do that is it's going to give me

2:32some more real estate.

2:33So I'm going to drag this off to a different location

2:35and give us a bigger screen area over here.

2:38And so here what we want to do is

2:39to take a look at what's in this user's profile.

2:41And then we're going to see what kind of settings

2:43we would expect to get migrated with the USMT.

2:46So starting with the shortcut that's already on the desktop,

2:49we have the calculator, which we can see opening right here.

2:52And it's in the scientific mode.

2:54I do that to provide the illusion that I actually

2:56understand science.

2:57And then we also have some data.

2:59So let's click on the File Explorer.

3:01By the way, my Windows kind of refresh

3:03slowly because I have a slow internet connection.

3:06I'm recording from another country.

3:07I'm not at home right now.

3:09So yours probably won't lack as badly as mine is right now.

3:12Anyway, now I go into Documents.

3:13And, oh, no, there's a My Secrets document here.

3:15What do we have in this?

3:17That could potentially be important data.

3:20And you can just pause here for a moment if you want to

3:22and read all of my secrets.

3:25All right, now once we've got that,

3:26let's just go ahead and close it.

3:28We don't need to make any changes or anything.

3:29And then let's also just copy this.

3:31I'm going to use the little toolbar up here to copy it.

3:33And then I'm going to paste it here on the desktop,

3:36just to show that we have some data there that would also

3:39get copied over.

3:39So when everything's done, if we're successful,

3:42what should happen is we'll have both this desktop copy

3:45of My Secrets and the one that's in the Documents

3:48folder right here.

3:49And let's see just for giggles, let's also put another shortcut

3:52from something here.

3:54Let's go to All apps.

3:55Oh, there's TikTok.

3:56You can't live without TikTok, right?

3:57So let's put that on the desktop.

3:59I actually had to get rid of TikTok on my phone

4:01because I find out if I'd wake up in the middle of the night

4:04or something I start scrolling TikTok and wasting time

4:06on TikTok instead of doing something useful like sleeping.

4:09So anyway, good productivity app for us to put on the shortcut

4:13here.

4:13And let's also put one more on the taskbar area as well.

4:16We'll just do this one quick and dirty.

4:18Right click on Calendar, let's say,

4:20and pin to the taskbar to see if it can retain that one.

4:24While we've got File Explorer open, let me go ahead

4:27and show one other thing here.

4:28And that is the profiles files that

4:29have logged on to this computer in the C drive.

4:31And then in the Users folder, we can

4:33see we have a local administrator account.

4:36We have the domain administrator here that's logged on.

4:39PhoenixUser01, PhoenixUsers02, those

4:42are the three domain accounts we've

4:44had that have logged on before.

4:45Now, when you work with User State Migration Tool,

4:48you'll migrate all the settings out of one user account.

4:52Then you migrate them into another user account.

4:55But what it does is it kind of partially sets up

4:58or it pre-stages a profile.

5:01The profile that you're stuffing all of those settings

5:03into and all that data into it cannot all ready exist.

5:07OK, so I could not draw all the data out of PhoenixUser01

5:12and then stuff all the data back into PhoenixUser01.

5:15All right?

5:15So it has to be a clean profile.

5:17I'll probably take it all out of here

5:19and then stuff it into PhoenixUser04 I think

5:22is an account that I can use.

5:23If you have something like a lift and shift,

5:26then that's not going to make much difference anyway

5:28because it'll be a blank hard drive anyhow when

5:30you apply all this data.

5:32If there's already a folder there-- or already

5:33a profile there, you'll need to go ahead and delete

5:38that before you draw the data back into it.

5:41Also, this user must not be logged

5:44on when we're running up USMT.

5:46So I need to log this user off, not just switch users, but log

5:51the user completely off.

5:52And then log on as my administrator account in order

5:56to be able to run the tools that I'll need to make this work.

5:59Another we'll need to be able to do once we log in

6:01is to map a network drive.

6:02I'll show you that as soon as we get going here.

6:05Well, this is just agonizingly painfully slow, folks.

6:08I tell you.

6:08All right, so what I'm going to do is go to other user

6:10down here in the lower left and enter

6:12in the domain administrator, not the local administrator.

6:16I can't just type administrator because that

6:18will use the local administrator account.

6:20I need to do administrator@nuggetlab.

6:23And then I'll use the password.

6:24You can use again--

6:26you can click on this thing here.

6:29You can click on this and pass in the password like that.

6:31And it should take it there.

6:33And then we'll go ahead and log on.

6:35So now that we're logged on, one of the things

6:37we will need to do is to be able to access the tools necessary.

6:40And that's of course, going to be the User State Migration

6:43Tool itself.

6:44If we open File Explorer, then we'll see down here on This PC,

6:49we have only the local drive and a D drive.

6:52Let's map a drive E to our network resources.

6:55So I'm going to go ahead and close that up.

6:57And I'm going to click on the Start menu again.

6:59And I'm just going to type CMD for a command prompt.

7:03I don't want to run this as administrator right now.

7:06I'm just mapping a drive is all.

7:07For this, we'll type in net use space and then e colon

7:12and then backslash backslash DC01--

7:15that's the name of the server--

7:16backslash.

7:17And then there's a public folder there.

7:19And that's going to have the tools that we need.

7:21I'll go ahead and Enter this and exit

7:23the command prompt for now.

7:24Oh, crud, I actually clicked on Chat.

7:27How do you get rid of this thing?

7:29Here we go.

7:30Anyway, now I'm going to click on File Explorer

7:32once again just to confirm that drive

7:34has been appropriately mapped.

7:37And I also need to access some files over there in Notepad.

7:40I'm going to go to This PC.

7:42There's my mapped drive.

7:44If I go into this, we see that there is a USMT folder.

7:47There's also a Staging folder.

7:49Let's go to the Staging.

7:50There's nothing in there now.

7:51What this is going to be is I'm going

7:53to drop all of our settings that I scoop up from PhoenixUser01.

7:57It's going to drop into this location.

7:59What I'm going to do here is go into USMT.

8:02And the tools that we actually use are in AMD64.

8:05It's going to be scanstate and loadstate.

8:07There's loadstate.

8:08And scanstate is further down.

8:10Of course, it's alphabetical.

8:11And I over scrolled.

8:12There it is.

8:13So those are the tools that we're going to be using there.

8:16What I want to do is also access these text files.

8:20Now, these are files that I have put there for you just so

8:22that you don't have to do a lot of typing

8:24and hopefully avoid more risk of things like a typo, which would

8:28cause the whole thing to fail.

8:29So with scanstate, I'm kind of zooming in here

8:31to make everything a little bit more visible with a Control +.

8:34We have scanstate.

8:35That's the tool that we use.

8:37We're pointing it to drive Z. And we're looking at the store

8:41there.

8:41Oh, you know what?

8:42It's actually going to be the store directory.

8:44I got that wrong earlier.

8:45It's not the staging.

8:46It's the store directory.

8:47That's where the profile settings are all going to here.

8:51Now, what does this do?

8:52There's an forward slash o there.

8:54That will overwrite any profiles that already exist there.

8:58In our case, I don't really need it

9:00because there's already an empty folder there.

9:02But just for good measure, I'm going to put the o in there.

9:04Forward slash ue will user exclude star dot star.

9:08So in other words, I'm excluding all users.

9:11Why would I do that?

9:12Don't we have to migrate somebody?

9:14Yes.

9:14But if I don't do that and then specify

9:17which user I want to include, it'll migrate all users.

9:20In our case, I'm just trying to make it faster and cleaner

9:23and easier to work with.

9:24So I'm not going to migrate PhoenixUser01 and 02

9:27because presumably that would take twice as long.

9:29And I want to make your lab as abbreviated as possible here.

9:33So we're excluding everybody except that.

9:34We're going to include PhoenixUser01,

9:37which you see right here.

9:39And we're going to migrate the user settings.

9:41By the way, these things, these XMLs

9:43will have specific instructions on what to migrate over.

9:47So there's migrate user, which is user settings.

9:50This is an XML file that if you're pretty good with it

9:52and you know what you're doing, you can also edit that.

9:55And you can include or exclude additional settings

9:58if you want to.

9:59Same with migrate documents, that'll

10:01specify which folders to migrate over.

10:03And then migrate app, it doesn't actually migrate application.

10:06So that's a little bit misleading

10:07I think the way that reads.

10:09What that does is it migrates over application settings.

10:12And it should migrate over application settings

10:15for apps that have been written according

10:17to Microsoft's requirements, which, of course, would include

10:21something like Microsoft Office.

10:22It doesn't seem to let me scroll over.

10:24So let me shorten this again.

10:26It does say we want to encrypt it.

10:29It could be, of course, security sensitive information in there.

10:32And we have a key to decrypt it, usmtsecret.

10:35Obviously, that's not very secure on its own.

10:39But you can make that more complicated if you want to.

10:41And, of course, you would have to protect

10:43this particular script or command

10:47line because anybody who opens it in plain text can read that.

10:50So you might want to put BitLocker or EFS or something

10:52else on it, in addition to normal permissions.

10:55That would restrict other users from accessing it.

10:58So what I'm going to do is select this whole line.

11:01So now that it's all selected, I'm

11:02going to right click on it and choose Copy.

11:05You can use Control-C if you want.

11:06I just do that to make it more intuitive since you're

11:09watching the video.

11:10Then what I want to do is to go to a command prompt again.

11:13So I'll do a CMD here to search for it.

11:15And there it is.

11:16So I'll go ahead and access that.

11:18And then I need to change to the appropriate directory.

11:20I think we're on drive E, right?

11:22So I'm going to type e colon, Enter.

11:23Do a dir.

11:24We can see our folders right there.

11:26I need to change directory to usmt.

11:28And there was another folder in there, yes, AMD64.

11:31So I need to also change to the AMD64.

11:34Then we have our scanstate here.

11:36We'll just confirm that right here.

11:37Yep, sure enough, there it is.

11:38I'll clear the screen to make it a little bit cleaner.

11:41And now, I'm going to right click and paste

11:43in that command, and it should go ahead and start running.

11:47Oh, you know what?

11:48I just realized I mapped the wrong drive letter.

11:51I had this map drive E. But I should

11:53have done Z because that's what's in the command right

11:55here.

11:55So let's just go ahead and map to drive Z as well just

11:59because we have another command later on that will also

12:01include that drive letter.

12:02So net use z colon backslash backslash dc01 and--

12:09OK, all right, now that command should work.

12:11Let's Up arrow a couple of times to get that command back

12:14and launch it.

12:15Now, of course, this is taking a few minutes.

12:17I'm going to cut time in the video

12:18so we don't have just empty space here.

12:21But on your labs, if you're following along,

12:23you may have to pause the video for a while

12:25to wait to catch up to where we are.

12:27All right, and then once everything's done,

12:29you should see a scanstate return code of 0.

12:32And then we're ready to proceed.

12:34Now, before we close this out, let's go back to File Explorer.

12:37And notice we have these two mapped drives now

12:39to the same location.

12:40But we'll go to drive Z.

12:41And we have the Store right here.

12:43And there's the USMT migration that's come into this.

12:46Notice that it's kind of a larger

12:47file, 742 megabytes in size.

12:51So do take that into consideration

12:54when you account for possibly migrating multiple profiles off

12:58of one computer because that can really start to add up.

13:00Anyway, we're just confirming that it's there.

13:03Now, let's go back over here to the USMT

13:06and access our other command line.

13:08That would be loadstate.

13:09So we're going to take that all that stuff that we just

13:12exported with the scanstate.

13:14And now we're going to load it with loadstate.

13:17And here what we have is loadstate.

13:19And again, it's going to be loading it from the Z drive

13:23where we have everything stored in the Store directory.

13:26We're going to migrate a specific user.

13:27That will be mu, Migrate User.

13:29Nuggetlab, that's the domain.

13:31PhoenixUser01, remember that was the user account

13:34and profile that we migrated out.

13:37We're going to migrate that in to someone

13:39that's never logged on to that computer

13:40before and does not have a profile in existence there.

13:44That will be PhoenixUser04.

13:45Same XML files for the same settings.

13:48We're going to decrypt using the same key there.

13:50There's also a forward slash c, which kind of ignores

13:52a lot of the extraneous errors.

13:54For example, a lot of times you'll

13:56get an error message about Windows Defender definitions

14:00or something like this.

14:02That's kind of innocuous because Defender definitions

14:05get updated once or twice a week anyway.

14:07So it really does not have much relevance

14:09to what we're doing here.

14:10So I'm going to go ahead and, again, select all of this.

14:13Copy it out.

14:14Close that up.

14:14I don't need it anymore.

14:15Close this as well.

14:17But we'll leave the command prompt window open.

14:19Just to make it cleaner, I'll clear the screen

14:21real quick with the CLS.

14:22And now, I'm going to right click

14:23to paste in the loadstate.

14:26That should then, again, stuff PhoenixUser01

14:29into the PhoenixUser04 profile once it's been created.

14:34It really, again, just kind of pre-stages it.

14:36The actual profile itself will be created once we log on

14:40as PhoenixUser04.

14:42This again will take a little while.

14:43So you can pause the playback of the video

14:45if you want while you wait for your computer to catch up.

14:48All right, now that that's been done, we can exit out of this.

14:52And we can log off this administrator account.

14:54We should be able to now log on as PhoenixUser04

14:57and to see those settings have come on over.

15:00So I'm going to go ahead and sign out the administrator

15:02account.

15:03Then I'll go down here to choose Other user in the lower left

15:06and enter in PhoenixUser04.

15:08Again, I'm going to paste in that password

15:10and log the user on.

15:12All right, now we have logged on.

15:13Let's confirm that by clicking the Start menu.

15:15There's PhoenixUser04 down here in the lower left.

15:19It looks like we've got some success here.

15:20I mean we've got the calculator here.

15:22I did notice that probably it's not going

15:24to have the scientific view.

15:25I don't know why that doesn't come over.

15:27But that's a little bit of a small concession to make.

15:29Yeah, just the standard view.

15:31And then we have the Secrets file on the desktop.

15:33That looks like it's all intact and incriminating.

15:37Definitely have the TikTok thing.

15:38I've got to make sure not to double click on that.

15:40Go down a black hole of TikTok.

15:42What else do we have?

15:43Documents, yeah, so let's go into File Explorer,

15:46go into Documents.

15:47And there is, again, another copy of that same file.

15:50So there we have it.

15:51Oh, we did get this calendar, didn't we,

15:54down here on the taskbar area as well?

15:57And so it appears that we successfully migrated

16:00all the stuff that we wanted to migrate over.

16:02And that, my friends, is the User State Migration Tool.

16:05All right, I hope this has been informative for you.

16:07I'd like to thank you for viewing.