Small update
So, apart from a few remaining bugs which I’m working with my company’s test team to resolve, WMA 1.0 shouldn’t differ than much from RC2. That said, I haven’t heard much in the way of feedback since RC2 so if you’ve found any bugs please let me know. Also, I’d like to get an idea of anyone who’s using WMA to see if it’s worthwhile persuing post 1.0 releases and adding new features. I’d appreciate it if you could drop a comment on this post saying if you using WMA and if you’d like to see any new features in upcoming versions.
On a seperate note, after a number of weeks in development, I finally took the wraps off the new Emerald Warriors RFC website! I’m pretty pleased with it, so have a look and see what you think 
Dan
Any chance of getting something added to specify users? I know this can be done on the command line, which is what I assume you are doing in the background. I’d like to use this, but I need the ability to specify what users I want backed up, not just me or everyone.
You can configure this within the config file mate, just add the users you want to copy over in there. Or the ones you want to ignore.
I haven’t had a chance to work with this yet, just too much other stuff going on. That said, I’m not clear on whether the computer being migrated requires USMT and Dotnet installed or whether I can point WMA to a remote PC/Server?
I downloaded version 1.0.3.6 and modified the config and it worked great on my laptop (XP Pro on an HP nc6400) but when I tried a fresh install on a desktop for testing (XP Pro, Compaq dc7800p), I get “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135).” I want to automate it so I installed it and tried to run it from a command prompt immediately with switches: C:\MigAssistant>migassistant.exe /progressonly restore /migfolder \\[laptop]\
c$\[laptop]_workx002 /xponly. Any suggestions? (Nice tool too BTW)
Sounds like you don’t have .NET 2.0 installed.
Doh! It was a fresh XP install with no .Net. Thanks. Now it doesn’t want to find my store from the laptop though. When I try the command line above, it says it can’t find a log file from the network location I put in the config file. Shouldn’t it look in \\[laptop]\
c$\[laptop]_workx002 first?
One more suggestion that I don’t think would be too hard - a little options screen that lets you define the command line switches would be good. A browse button to pick a location, an XP Only toggle switch, etc.
Hi Dan,
We have been working on something like this for quite a while here at our company. One of the delimmas we have found ourselves in is related to EFS. Each of our users has three folders with EFS enabled:My Documents, Desktop, and Outlook folder under APPDATA. We have developed a solution to automatically export the users’ EFS key on backup, and import it on restore. However this obviously won’t work on a multi-user backup. I was wondering if you have considered adding code to allow for EFS certificate backup / restore to your tool?
WKW: The command-line switches get defined based on your criteria configured through the .Exe.Config file and your GUI selections. Browse for location is already available as part of the Advanced Settings dialog which is normally hidden - most companies would have a pre-defined server location set. The XP Only mode is set through the .Exe.Config file too - however, there are checks in place to make sure that it gets disabled when a ScanState is run on Vista.
JAS: It’s definitely something I could take a look at. However, I’m not very familiar with EFS - how would I go about exporting the key?
Cheers, Dan
EFS export is not straightforward, see http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/a8b21b9b-d102-4045-9f36-e4b3430d2f381033.mspx?mfr=true
Cheers,
Ben
Thanks Dan. Are you saying the command line switches also have to be defined in the config file somewhere? Or that the config file overrides them? I still can’t get the back up to go anywhere else but the config’d location - even choosing “Yes” on the USB drive option doesn’t work.
The config file in combination with the UI define what command-line switches should be used.
Strange about the USB drive issue. I’ll look into it.
I was able to use the advanced setings to manually save to a location but I can’t get it to restore from that data on the new machine either. It says it can’t find a data store (even though it’s obviously there). On the command line switch, if I have a location specified in the config file and run the program with /migfolder \\[location], it should look in [location], correct? Does that work for you? Thanks for the help.
Ben: Sorry, I completely missed your question above. Sorry. It does require .NET 2.0 installed. USMT doesn’t actually have to be installed and the whole lot can be run from a network location, provided you’ve allowed all your clients to run the Migration Assistant from a particular location. From the ReadMe file:
—
It IS possible to run WMA from a network location, however this requires modifying the .NET security restrictions on each workstation you intend to run on. This can be done by running the following command from an Administrator Elevated command-prompt:
“C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\caspol” -quiet -m -ag “LocalIntranet_Zone” -url “\\UNCPATH\WMA\App\*” FullTrust -n “Workstation Migration Assistant Assembly” -d “Grants full trust”
Where \\UNCPATH\WMA\App is the full path to the Workstation Migration Assistant
—
Also, thanks for the info on EFS. I’ll look into it when I get a chance.
Dan
WKW: I found the bug relating to the /MigFolder switch and have resolved, along with numerous other problems. Care you test? Fire me an email and I’ll send you a copy.
Cheers, Dan
Silly question: The MigAssistant.exe.config file has the options MigrationUSBMinSize and MigrationMaxSize, whose default values are 2048 and 20480 respectively. But what units are these numbers: KB? MB? GB?
Never mind, I found the answer in the introductory comment about “if over 20GB”. Therefore, the Migration*Size options must be in MB.
its support rmbv files..?