Tranxition produces technology for IT professionals, not civilians, so our support people have degrees in computer science and are working network management professionals. While we have a phone number, the quickest way to obtain support is to access our help system.
Frequently Asked Questions
Want to migrate Windows Edge Bookmarks? With the latest Edge versions you can.
Microsoft has released a number of different versions of Edge since it first released in 2015. The initial versions used proprietary browser engines where the settings and bookmarks were not easily migrated to new machines. In January 2020, the latest Edge browser was released which uses the Chromium browser engine. This version of Edge stores bookmarks in a file which can easily be migrated to new computers.
If your users are using Edge browser version 79 or newer, an easy to add File Rule in Migration Manager can migrate bookmarks for the default Edge profile (if users have multiple profiles within Edge, this will only migrate the first one).
Create this inclusion File Rule in Migration Manager:
%USERLOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\bookmarks*
Note: Because the ‘Bookmarks’ file does not have an extension, we add an * to the end of the file name in File Rules.
More information about File Rules can be found here: File Rules – User’s Guide
We have seen a few customer reports of errors running a peer storage solution called Nomad.
Migration Manager writes to Windows. It appears the Nomad software intercepts those writes and copies them to a cache. It then reports a successful write operation. Unfortunately, it has not yet fully written the file to storage. Migration Manager continues to operate on this basis. The Nomad software seems to lose track of the files and they are not successfully written or recorded.
The best solution is to disable Nomad during migration. We will reach out to the company and alert them of the error and see if we can work together to address.
PsExec is a light-weight telnet-replacement that lets you execute processes on other systems, complete with full interactivity for console applications, without having to manually install client software. PsExec’s most powerful uses include launching interactive command-prompts on remote systems and remote-enabling tools like IpConfig that otherwise do not have the ability to show information about remote systems.
Benefits of Using PsExec
PsExec can be used in a variety of ways to accomplish remote tasks on a network connected computer. It’s also:
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Built into Windows Since XP
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Free to Use
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Microsoft Approved
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Supports basic success/fail output codes
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Simple and easy to use
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Easily integrates into third party applications and imaging solution
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Preferred Solution for Tranxition Migration Manager Administrators
Where Can I Get PsExec?
PsExec can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft at .
Suggested PsExec Installation
After downloading PsExec.zip, extract the contents of the zip file to a subfolder within the folder where Migration Manager is installed. Alternatively you can extract the PsExec tools to a folder within your system path.
PsExec Syntax
Usage:
psexec [\\computer[,computer2[,...] | @file]][-u user [-p psswd][-n s][-r servicename][-h][-l][-s|-e][-x][-i [session]][-c [-f|-v]][-w directory][-d][-<priority>][-a n,n,...] cmd [arguments]
A full explanation of the available command line arguments can be found by typing “PsExec /?” at the command line. Application names with spaces in them must be enclosed with quotations e.g.
psexec \\marklap "c:\long name app.exe"
Launching an Extraction or Injection Using PsExec
From a remote server or workstation, administrators can initiate a Migration Manager automation command on a remote PC using the following command string. In order for the PsExec command and the remote task to work properly, your user account must have administrative permissions on the target machine. This can be done by passing the credentials within the PsExec command string. See the example below.
psexec \\desktop-pc -u DomainName\username -p password \\ServerName\migrationmanager\se.exe /autoextract
Note: If you omit username the remote process will run in the same account from which you execute PsExec, but because the remote process is impersonating it will not have access to network resources on the remote system and therefore may not work correctly. If you do specify an alternative username/password, then PsExec will send the password in clear text. This can be a security risk if unauthorized network sniffers could intercept traffic between the local and remote system.
Summary
As illustrated in this technical document, PsExec can be a reliable and easy to use utility for administrators that want to remotely manage their desktop PC migrations. PsExec also has the ability to natively handle error output from Migration Manager, this allows for reporting and/or monitoring of the Migration Manager task being run.
Want to migrate Windows Explorer Quick Access shortcuts? In some scenarios you can.
In Windows 10/11, the Quick Access shortcuts are stored in ‘automatic destinations-ms’ files, which contain user specific paths. This means, if you are not redirecting users (no changes to the user profile path C:\Users\<username>) then you can migrate these Win10 to Win10 using File Rules in Migration Manager. If the user profile path does change from the old to new computer, shortcuts to those locations will not carry over.
Quick access in Windows 7 is stored differently and cannot be migrated to Windows 10/11.
For Windows 10/11 with no profile path changes, add the following two inclusion File Rules to Migration Manager:
%USERRECENTFILES%\AutomaticDestinations\f01b4d95cf55d32a.automaticDestinations-ms
%USERRECENTFILES%\AutomaticDestinations\1b4dd67f29cb1962.automaticDestinations-ms
More information about File Rules can be found here: File Rules – User’s Guide
Because Migration Manager is a well-behaved application, using it along with OneDrive and Box.com is fast becoming an effective storage medium for PC Migration processes. With OneDrive, point Migration Manager’s datastore Location to point to the OneDrive directory. Note that cloud transfer takes time and you will notice that migrations take twice as long or more.
To use Migration Manager with Box.com, download and install the BoxDrive utility from the Box website. Point the datastore to the BoxDrive location. If your account in use has local admin privileges, you will be able to save all profiles to that BoxDrive account.
You can use the LOCAL SYSTEM account by installing BoxDrive to it, and running Migration Manager under it. This also will work with KACE, SCCM, and other systems management tools.
We have found BoxDrive to be highly-efficient and well-implemented.
Migration Manager is designed to be very careful about which system calls our software makes. Any UNC compatible storage location, including network shares, NAS, and cloud systems are reachable as long as these installations are standard Windows call compatible. You can reach out to support to work with us on a specific installation.
Every Windows system has a collection of user accounts, such as Local Administrator and users. In addition to that, Windows has an account called LOCALSYSTEM. Local System is a high priviledge account that is most often used to run administrator-level services, such as a watcher app or remote network monitoring.
Many people are not aware that LOCALSYSTEM can be accessed other ways. In Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, an end-point device management environment, most often used by medium and large-sized companies, activities taking place on the system can be directed to use LOCAL SYSTEM.
Additionally, a Microsoft utility called PSEXEC can also run software under LOCAL SYSTEM. 3rd-party tools such as NIRSoft, Ewe Sieber Tools, and M2Team.
Migration Manager is often tasked to run as LOCAL SYSTEM. Running as LOCAL SYSTEM is good because it is repeatable across a network, every Windows system has one. Using the above mentioned software, you can execute Migration Manager and capture and inject all the personas on a system. This approach also works with Windows PE.
Migration Manager already eliminates the migration of the “Temporary Internet Files” that contain sometimes very large internet website cache files. Browsers that use the directory above are automatically kept from migrating by activating the setting in the user interface.
Preferences for Extraction
  [ ] Exclude the user’s temporary internet files
For Google Chrome, which does not implement their browser using the standard Windows directory, the best way to achieve this is to create a File Rule or Rules.
In the interface select File Rules.
Create the following rule:
Click: ‘File Rules’
Select: Exclude
Create the following rules:
%USERLOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache
%USERLOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Code Cache
Click apply.
Be sure to click Yes to including subdirectories.
Microsoft has changed the structure of Task Bar and Start Menu several times. Tranxition Migration Manager does perform this for all users on Windows 7 and 8, but only for logged in users Windows 10/11. We continue to try to workaround the limitations imposed by MS. We will keep you posted as we solve it.
Roaming Profiles are supported in Migration Manager. While most features are available right from the interface, using Migration Manager requires use of the command line automation features for roaming profiles.
More information on migrating Roaming Profiles can be found here: Roaming Profiles – Automation Guide
Yes. If you select the document migration checkboxes in the apps section under “Select for Extraction”, Migration Manager will search all drives for documents. If you elect to set “File Rules” for document migration, File Rules take precedence over these “canned” drive searches and can reduce the search map and therefore the time.
File Rules also gives you very helpful %tokens% that enable you to virtualize your File Rules for all users. See the section in the Migration Manager User’s Guide that covers File Rules. That little guide will help you get the most from the tool and is worth spending 5-10 minutes reviewing. It’s available on this help system at the top-most menu.
Migration Manager’s sin qua none is that we do not migrate things that can break the user experience. Additionally, many users collect lists of printers over the years, plus software virtual printers that are not connected to hardware. Many of these printers are no longer in use.
What we do accomplish is to capture the local printer identities and migrate them to the new desktop. An identity is a ‘shortcut’ that resides on the desktop. Click on the shortcut and the correct printer driver will be installed for that desktop based upon the printers the user needs at the current time.
Tranxition considered supporting the movement of applications during a migration. To determine if it was workable, we built and tested a prototype. We learned that migrating applications, especially across a network, was unfavorably slow. Migrations of 10-15 hours would result. We also learned that as a result of the design of Windows, that applications were not contained effectively, and had implications in many places in the operating system and with other applications. The result is that the migrated applications did not often work. Tranxition does not productize features that only sometimes work. We also discovered that many apps recognize a new device and won’t operate without the current or new key.
We recommend: software deployment tools that install licensed software with keys is an excellent choice. Also excellent and most time sensitive is using an imaging product with the standard applications already installed. Either of these approaches in conjunction with Tranxition Migration Manager gives you a cost effective, reliable platform when the process is complete.
The structure of Windows prevents us from supplying a definitive list of the settings we migrate. Windows programmers set up many different data structures for each app and they are all unique, often encrypted, and change with each version.
Migration Manager captures these collections of settings, and adjusts them on the fly during injection after detecting which version (32-bit, 64-bit, OS version, application versions) is installed.
You can see which settings groups we support by starting Migration Manager and locating the tab “Select for Extraction. There are many thousands of settings which are collected and transformed.
Tranxition Migration Manager is designed to gather settings and documents in a number of ways:
- Using a network share. If you plan to use a network share, then install Migration Manager to that share. Installing it locally usually limits it to the machine you have installed it to.
- Using a portable hard drive or USB. If you plan to use a USB or portable drive, then install Migration Manager there.
By installing Migration Manager to the directory you will use for your testing and rollout, you’ll be able to run it on many machines.
Remember, most versions of Migration Manager require an internet connection to access our private license server.