Dan Cunningham

The Workstation Migration Assistant is a visual wrapper for Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool, designed to simplify the capture / restore process for your end-users, and at the same time being highly configurable so that it can be customised to suit your organisations needs. Some of it’s features include:

• Migrate via a pre-defined network storage location, external USB drive, or user-specified location. USB drive detection is automatic, and you can decide whether drives below a certain size are ignored (ie, memory sticks)
• Optional Hard Disk Health Check will run a CHKDSK prior to capture and fix errors if any are found
• Optional Encryption using a pre-defined company encryption key, or per-user customised encryption (for highly sensitive data that can’t be stored on a server without being encrypted)
• Use different configurations for “XP Only” (XP > XP) migrations via Standard (XP > Vista and Vista > Vista)
• Automatically run pre and post-capture / restore scripts and programs (very useful to further configure machine settings)
• Migrate domain only accounts, or domain and local
• Automatically exclude certain domain or local accounts from the migration
• Automatically send log files to an e-mail address via SMTP after the migration
• On-screen status during every stage of the migration, including ETA
• Option to limit migrations to a certain size, i.e. if over 20GB of data to backup, then fail and inform user. This is also overridable
• Automatic checks for USMT installation and optional download
• Command-line automation
• Super-pretty UI

Download

This application requires the .NET Framework 2.0 to be installed on both the capture and restore workstations

Latest Release: 1.09 (19th February 2010) – Download

Source Code: GitHub Repository

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to run WMA from a network share?

Yes, although it requires a bit of configuration of .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

Change Log

1.09 (19th February 2010)

1.05 (20th February 2009)

• NEW: MultiUserMode .exe.config setting and /MultiUserMode command-line switch: will set the default migration type to (surprise surprise!) multiple users.

1.04 (18th February 2009)

• NEW: MigrationUSBAutoUseIfAvailable Setting which will automatically use a USB drive if attached (to facilitate ZTI migrations)
• CHANGE: Compatibility with Windows 7 using USMT4. USMT4-based features to come later, but for now, basic migration should work

1.03 (11th December 2008)

• NEW: MigrationDomainChange setting and /CHANGEDOMAIN command-line options (equivalent of USMT LoadState /MD switch)

1.02 (11th August 2008)

• NEW: Added Target OS Option under Advanced Settings
• NEW: Added MigrationExclusionsOlderThanDays option to config. This is ignored if set to 0 (default), but will exclude all accounts not logged in within the specified period, ie. 90 days. This uses USMT’s /UEL: parameter
• CHANGE: If MaxMigrationSize is set to 0, there is no limit to the migration size
• FIX: Under certain conditions, progress monitoring would continue even when the migration was finished or cancelled

1.01 (11th June 2008)

• FIX: Pre / Post Migration scripts did not run during Restore

1.0 Final (9th June 2008)

• NEW: Replaced “SettingsHealthCheckDisabled” with “SettingsHealthCheckDefaultEnabled”. Admins can specify whether it should be enabled or not by default, but can no longer be removed completely
• NEW: /LAC is enabled by default on Restore
• NEW: MigrationRestoreAccountsPassword setting to specify default password for use with /LAC
• NEW: MigrationRestoreAccountsEnabled setting to enable /LAE
• CHANGE: Health Check is now skipped if not ticked – text has been updated to clarify this better.
• CHANGE: Better exception handling around USMT download / install
• FIX: Only domain accounts migrated with “Migration current user only” selected
• FIX: If a script / app run via Pre/Post-Processing wasn’t VBS, VBE or EXE (case-sensitive), it would never run
• FIX: Local exclusions in settings files were ignored and all local accounts ignored (if using Domain and Local option)
• FIX: Double prompt on Advanced Settings > Other location
• FIX: Double prompt on Advanced Settings > Custom Encryption

1.0 RC3 (22nd May 2008)

• CHANGE: Debug log is now included as part of SMTP mails if it is found
• CHANGE: Status label made bigger
• CHANGE: Better Logging around Pre/Post Migration Scripts and other logging improvements
• FIX: Alternate Migration Location specified via Advanced Settings or /MIGFOLDER switch were not being used on Restore
• FIX: When a USB drive was chosen as the Datastore location, the C: drive was used instead
• FIX: Clicking No on failed Health Check would not proceed with the Migration
• FIX: MaxMigrationSize triggered error incorrectly reported as “Migration Cancelled”
• FIX: SMTP Mailing now gracefully skips if no Network Connection found (ie, USB mode)
• FIX: Health Check progress information was not being displayed on XP
• FIX: ERROR / WARNING dialogs were sometimes not displayed as the Foreground window
• FIX: SMTP Mailing exception handling improved
• FIX: Cosmetic fixes to Health Check debug output

1.0 RC2 (10th April 2008)

• CHANGE: Massive updates and fixes around threading
• CHANGE: Removed main loops and replaced with event-raising to improve UI performance
• CHANGE: Replaced WMA icon with a royalty-free alternative
• CHANGE: Updated ReadMe with .NET 2.0 pre-requisites and details on how to run WMA from Network share
  CHANGE: Removed Vista API.dll – seems to have been causing unhandled exceptions for non-English systems
• CHANGE: Much improved error checking and debugging output
• CHANGE: Major code cleanup
• FIX: Fatal Exception errors on non-English systems
• FIX: If a migration was bigger than available space on network/USB location, WMA would exit without warning, and without terminating ScanState
• FIX: Aborting Health Check or Migration no longer produced an InvalidOperationException
• FIX: Restarting a Migration after an abort produced an error
• FIX: If a migration was cancelled, a failure email was still sent
• FIX: Unnecessary double-warning if USMT was not found