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FAST vs. USMT

banderas1978

Hello,
I am preparing for the 70-270 exam and have some questions to ask. I hope someone might be able to help me.

1.When should I use Image Preparationa nd when Direct Deployment?
2.When would you use FAST and when USMT?

Regards

Banderas

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Comments

sthomas

The User State Migration Tool is used for large Windows XP (and Vista) deployments. It is a command line tool and I believe you can use it to copy files from a computer remotely to a network share. The have used the FAST Wiz before and it is ok for copy files over from one computer at a time to another. Although I prefer to tranfer files and settings manually these days. More info can be found below.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/91f62fc4-621f-4537-b311-1307df0105611033.mspx?mfr=true

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/crawford_november12.mspx

banderas1978

sthomas wrote:

. Although I prefer to tranfer files and settings manually these days.

Hi, Thomas, and why is that?

doom969

The wizard can take a super uber long time when the profile is big and its often just not worth the wait. Copying manually, you can make sure everything is ok and its usually faster.
For many users/computers, USMT is the way to go.
(Unless, of course, you want to deploy roaming profiles.

)

banderas1978

doom969 wrote:

(Unless, of course, you want to deploy roaming profiles. )

And how do I proceed if I do?

doom969

Essentially, what you do is you use a gpo to tell the workstations that the profile is located on a server share. When the user first logon after, the profile will be uploaded to the share.
Then at each logon, the workstation will download a copy of the profile and at each logoff will upload the changes back to the server. So, when the session is open, the user works on a local copy of the profile, but the permanent copy resides on a server. This means that if you where to open a session on another computer, it would download your profile to this computer as well.
Be careful, because not everything can be roamed, such as the local settings folders. So if you have .pst files in it or something, you need to move it and point to it manually.

Also, roaming profiles are usually used in conjunction with redirecting the mydocs, desktop, and application data directly to a share on a server. This is better because that way you do not have to download them with the profile when you open a session. (It can cause the session to be long to open if the profile is too big.) There is also a gpo to do that.

Some links to help you with that :

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/b41402c2-c982-4bfb-891e-91b47f211e181033.mspx?mfr=true

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316353/en-us

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/cad7966e-c9b6-495f-b7bb-2a9673f69f4f1033.mspx?mfr=true

macdude

Remember for the test though you want to use FAST when you are moving the user stuff from computer A to computer b. You will want to use USMT when you are moving the stuff from computer a, b, c to d,e,f.

Like doom said Roaming profiles are the way to go, I love them here at work, cuts my time down by alot when I set up a new computer for a user.

sthomas

banderas1978 wrote:

sthomas wrote:

. Although I prefer to tranfer files and settings manually these days.

Hi, Thomas, and why is that?

Once you have setup enough computers for users you memorize where all of the settings are stored in the OS (in this case Windows XP). As doom said it takes a long time to run the File and Settings transfer wizard plus in my experience it seems to grab a bunch of junk along with the legit files and settings. Once someone sets up enough computers they get really efficient at copying files/setting over by hand. As for the USMT I am not sure as I have never used it before. Just remember this is just my real world answer to the question you asked not necessarily the "microsoft answer".

macdude

Once you have setup enough computers for users you memorize where all of the settings are stored in the OS (in this case Windows XP).

If I can I do it i will do it by hand. I have recently got in the mode of a taking a ghost image. Copying the ghost image and leave it on the hard drive a couple of days and check with the user and make sure I got everything they need and if I didn't i extract from image. Then after awhile I delete the image of there computer.