Moving personality profiles from another OS to Windows
2000 used to be a tedious process. These tools can turbo-charge
that task.
Make User Migrations Fly
Moving personality profiles from another OS to Windows
2000 used to be a tedious process. These tools can turbo-charge
that task.
- By Stewart Cawthray
- July 01, 2001
Personality Tranxport Professional v2.1, from Tranxition,
differs from the wizard-style migration tools I’ve discussed
so far. PT Pro runs from a server and stores personalities
in a central repository. PT Pro’s installation loads the
client software and the personality repository to a folder
on a network server. By doing it this way, an administrator’s
ability to manage the migration of multiple systems is
greatly enhanced. Since the locations are well known to
the administrator, they can easily automate the process
using scripts or software-distribution tools. From a workstation,
you then connect to the server and run the client setup
program. PT Pro is a single interface that gives you access
to both the extraction and insertion of personality data.
PT Pro uses a Windows GUI interface.
|
Figure 5. PT Pro’s interface
gives you access to the profile extraction and insertion
tools. (Click image to view larger version.) |
PT Pro transfers a broad set of items, including
the desktop and control panel settings, application settings
for the most common business applications, network connectivity,
Internet and e-mail, and documents and data files. It
includes rule-based file movement, giving you tremendous
control over what files are moved and where they’re sent.
PT Pro can migrate these settings between computers, even
if they have different versions of Windows installed.
The settings, which are extracted and stored in the personalities
folder on the server, are listed in the client tool on
the insertion page. This list allows you to identify your
profile by user name, computer name and domain name. Also,
PT Pro provides seven user-defined fields to help further
group and identify your personalities.
|
Figure 6. PT Pro’s insertion
page lists all personalities stored on the server.
(Click image to view larger version.) |
Once a personality is extracted, it can be
inserted onto a fresh install of Windows via the client
tool or by using the NETCONNECT utility. NETCONNECT creates
an image that can be used to insert a personality into
a computer that isn’t currently connected to the network.
NETCONNECT allows you to transfer the personality information
from one computer to another and extract it without access
to the client software on the network server. This is
a convenient feature for administrators who need to migrate
remote or mobile users who may not want to wait for files
to transfer over a slow connection. Unlike PC Transplant
Pro, NETCONNECT uses a separate executable to extract
the personality files on the destination system. Since
personality files can be very large depending on how many
settings and files are being migrated, it’s often faster
to use a network connection, but the offline features
are a nice to have when you have no choice.
PT Pro provides a command-line interface
that allows automated installation and uninstallation
of the client and extraction or insertion of personalities.
These advanced features make the migration of multiple
systems very easy. PT Pro uses a configuration file on
the server to tell the client software what settings it
can migrate. Also, when the client is running on the server
as a shared application, new or updated configuration
files are instantly available to all instances of PT Pro
once they’re installed. This can save a lot of time if
you manage hundreds or thousands of client computers.
PT Pro is a powerful migration tool obviously
focused at enterprise administrators, with its centralized
management of personalities and rules-based controls.
PT Pro is more complicated to use than the wizard-based
migrations tools, but not overly so. It’s best suited
for IT professionals or service providers who need to
migrate large numbers of systems and need a high degree
of control.
About the Author
Stewart Cawthray, MCSE, ITIL Service Manager, is an IT management consultant for Hewlett-Packard.