Migrate7 8.2 User Data Storage Policies

Redirect User Data to Network Shares

One of the most often asked features in recent years has to do with changing where user documents are stored.  One of the best times to make such a change is a system refresh, or migration time.  Migrate7′s team engaged in a pain-staking review of how these policies can be supported in Migrate7.  The result is a feature called “Folder Redirection.”  This feature as far as we know is not found in USMT or other free products.

Using Folder Redirection is as straight-forward as the rest of Migrate7.  This blog entry covers the basics.

We’ll assume you are using a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment  and you want to configure Folder Redirection.  This feature should work on older versions of Windows Server, although the screen shots might be different.

Profile Share Configuration

The following steps are derived from the Microsoft recommendations for a secure folder redirection environment.
  1. Create a folder to store the redirected folders. (i.e. “C:\folder_redirection”)
  2. Share the folder and make it hidden from browsing. You do this by adding a “$” at the end of the share name.fr-ss1.png
  3. Give “Full Control” share permissions to the following groups:fr-ss2.png
    1. SYSTEM
    2. The security group that contains all roaming profiles domain accounts. (i.e. “Folder Redirect”)
    3. Domain Admins
    4. Built-in system admins (Administrators)

  4. Give “Full Control” security permissions to the following groups:

    fr-ss3.png

    1. Domain Admins
    2. SYSTEM
    3. Built-in system admins (Administrators)
  5. The security group that contains all folder redirected domain accounts. (i.e. “Folder Redirect”) will need special permissions to the folder.fr-ss4.png
    1. List folder /read data (Allow)
    2. Create folders / write data (Allow)
    3. The above settings should apply to “This folder only”.
  6. The security group “CREATOR OWNER” will also need special permission to the folder.fr-ss5.png
    1. Full Control (Allow)
    2. The setting should apply to “Subfolders and files only”.

Running Migrate7

When running Migrate7 in an environment that is secured according to the instructions in this document you have to run Migrate7 as a Domain Admin or during logon of a redirected user.

That’s it.  That’s all there is to it.  Your users will never know the difference, and your IT policy experts will smile as they know that storage, backup,disaster recovery, and malware-prevention are easier to carry out on centrally-managed data.

Migrate7 Scores in Customer Interview

 

[Ed: We recently sat down with a customer to talk about a recent migration.  This IT Manager works for an international energy company and recently performed a 300-seat migration.  We thought we would share.  It seems like this user's favorite Migrate7 feature is not having to use USMT.]

Q:  How is your migration going?

Our Migration is going quite well.  Your migration utility is doing a great job!  It has impressed our management out here. I love it and it’s so easy to use, a monkey could do it.  Life would have been miserable trying to do this manually or trying to use USMT.”

Even more than that, end-users have commented: this is the smoothest transition ever.

Q:  What do you like best about Migrate7?

Migrate7 easily captures all the user profile info, lots of customized applications and stored data.  It’s easy to customize Migrate7 to collect what’s needed (or avoid what is not needed).

If we miss something during the main extraction, it is very easy to incrementally extract and inject that information.  Migrate7 has saved me so much time.

Q:  How much time has it saved you?

I would estimate it takes me less than 50-60% of the time it would using USMT.

Q: Can you tell us about your migration specifically?

We used it to deploy 300 Windows 7 systems, so far. We set it up to save user personas to a server, and occasionally we attach a USB disk to a local machine and use it that way.

We run 4-5 migrations at a time and save the profile in case we need to restore at a later date.   We migrate the OS (Windows 7), Microsoft Office settings and all user data.  This is not a refresh in place.  We are replacing hardware in most cases at the same time as the Windows 7 conversion, so the user needs to be physically present at the PC.

We purchased the hardware is purchased from HP, preloaded with our pre-defined corporate image (both OS and apps).  We do not use a software deployment tool in-house.

Migrate7 version 8.2 Released

Version 8.2 of Migrate7 is now available with significant new features supporting an even wider range of migration scenarios.

Server Migration

Migrate7 now supports migrating users for Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Services environments. Specifically, the following scenarios are supported:

- Windows Server 2003 R2 to Windows Server 2003 R2

- Windows Server 2003 R2 to Windows Server 2008 R2

- Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2008 R2

This feature means that you can now use Migrate7 to support migrations when upgrading existing Windows Server 2003 R2 Terminal Services servers to Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services as well as when deploying new and/or replacement servers. An additional feature is that it’s also possible to migrate local profiles to Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Services profiles.

This greatly expands the use cases for Migrate7 for all types of migration and deployment scenarios.

Roaming Profiles

Users configured with roaming profiles can now be migrated in all supported environments:

- Windows XP

- Windows Vista

- Windows 7

- Windows Server 2003 R2

- Windows Server 2008 R2

It is also possible to migrate roaming profile users to profiles with local profiles or local profiles with folder redirection (or even roaming profiles also using folder redirection).

Support for Profiles with Folder Redirection

In addition to supporting roaming profiles, Migrate7 also provides support for handling users with folder redirection configured – both when used with local profiles and roaming profiles.

Users with folder redirection configured are supported in all supported environments. Users with local profiles can also be migrated to profiles with folder redirection configured.

User Interface Updates

The Migrate7 User Interface has been updated to fully support users that use accessibility features such as large fonts or high contrast color schemes in Windows.

Easier Troubleshooting

For those cases when support is needed, a new feature has been added to the Help menu – Package Log Files for Support. This feature automatically grabs the relevant log files from the system and packages these up in a Zip file that can be sent to Support, relieving the user of the work of having to find the log files manually.

Updated Application Support

Support for migrating settings relating to the following applications in particular has been enhanced:

- Adobe Acrobat Pro

- Adobe Acrobat Reader

- Microsoft Word (2003/2007/2010)

- Microsoft Outlook (2003/2007/2010)

Availability

Migrate7 version 8.2 is available for download now to all customers with an active support contract. An evaluation version is also available for download.

Migrate7 version 8.1 Released

Version 8.1 of Migrate7 has been released and is available for download for all customers with an active support contract. An evaluation version is also available for download.

Major new features in this release include:

/PERSONALITYPATH Command-Line Parameter

The new /PERSONALITYPATH command-line parameter makes it possible to completely define the path where Migrate7 should read and/or write personality data for a specific operation. This feature makes many migration scenarios easier since you can include environment variables such as computer or user name in the personality path.

Stricter File/User Association

Migrate7 now pays more attention to which files belong to which users during extractions and injections. This is most important when extracting only a subset of users from a system with several user profiles or when injecting only one user out of several available users.

Improved Extraction Performance

Performance during extractions have been improved so that extractions are now 20 – 40% (depending on file types) faster than in 8.0.

Migrate7 version 8.0 Released

Version 8.0 of Migrate7 has been released and is available for download for all customers with an active support contract. An evaluation version is also available for download.

Major new features in this release include:

Improved Support for Zero-Touch Migrations

Migrate7 now supports defining the source and target computer pairing for migrations in a mapping file that can be used during injections to ensure that the correct user state is migrated to the target computer. This makes zero-touch migrations possible in any environment, even those without a robust desktop management tool in place.

New and Updated Application Support

With this release, Migrate7 can now support, out-of-the-box, user state migrations for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. We have also enhanced our support for migrating additional user settings for Microsoft Office, Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Pro.

Updated Compression Algorithm

To enhance the performance of extractions and injections (both in terms of speed and compression ratio), the compression algorithm used by Migrate7 has been replaced with the popular ZLib compression algorithm.

Improved Progress Dialog UI

The progress dialog (optionally) displayed to end users when performing long-running operations has been improved to display more relevant information about the progress of the operation in a more user-friendly fashion.

Using File Rules to Optimize Extractions

Previous versions of Migrate7 have always been able to exclude files from being extracted, but all directories were still scanned which takes time when there are a lot of files present. With this release, the file rules engine is now able to completely skip scanning directories if it can be determined that there is no way any files can be included from the directory or any of its subdirectories. This can significantly speed up extraction times in certain scenarios.

Gartner on Migrating to Windows 7

Gartner has published must-read information on deploying and migrating to Windows 7 as part of their Windows 7 Research.

This report on Windows 7 and Office 2010 in particular makes the case for why it’s essential to start planning your Windows 7 deployment now.

Migrate7 offers unparalleled support for migrating users to Windows 7 and Office 2010, download your evaluation copy here.

Migrate7 Featured by Network World

Migrate7 is featured as an essential tool in Network World’s guide to Windows 7 migrations guide to Windows 7 migrations, published in June.

The guide covers everything from basic tips and tricks, desktop virtualization considerations, application compatibility and useful tools.

Click here to register and read the article.

Migrate7 Content Builder 2.0 Released

Version 2.0 of Migrate7 Content Builder has been released and is available as a free download to all Migrate7 customers.

Content Builder is now even easier to use and provides full support for creating migration content that can be used when doing Windows 7 migrations. It’s now possible to develop migration content to support migrations of virtually any application using the intuitive user interface in Content Builder.

Along with the new version of Content Builder, sample content supporting migrations of popular applications is also available on the Content Builder page.

For more information, please visit http://tranxition.com/solutions/content-builder/

Tranxition Announces the latest addition to their product suite – Migrate7 Content Builder

Tranxition, a leading user state migration for the enterprise company, announces Migrate7 Content Builder as their latest addition to their Migrate7 product suite.

Content Builder makes is easy to quickly add support when migrating applications that are not supported out-of-the-box. Common scenarios when this is useful is to support applications that have been developed in-house or applications that support specific verticals. Consultants and system integrators can use Content Builder to create application migration support used for multiple customers which makes migration projects faster and more comprehensive by quickly supporting application migrations.

Content Builder features a powerful and easy-to-use UI that makes it possible to quickly define Windows Registry and File System data that needs to be included to migrate user settings for an application.

For more information, please visit http://tranxition.com/solutions/content-builder/

Migrate7 Featured on Enterprise Features

Migrate7 was recently featured on enterprisefeatures.com.

“Migrate7 provides unmatched abilities to migrate user state data between different versions of Windows and applications in terms of the depth of support provided (there are over 800 individual settings migrated for Microsoft Word alone between the different versions of Word). It is also the only tool available at the moment that supports Office 2010.”

Read full article