User State Migration Tool and SCCM

Let's take this tool today for dissection. Many of you who have worked on SCCM and Specially Operating System Deployment Feature of SCCM must be aware of this tool. To make it very simple from SCCM Perspective ”USMT is used to Capture User State” .

Let us have a look at the below diagram:

http://sccmconfighelp.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/usmt-sccm.jpg?w=300&h=148

User State Migration Tool – USMT SCCM 2012

Note :  USMT is used when we want to Migrate from one Operating System to Other ( Just like Many of you might be set to do or Doing SCCM XP to Windows 7 Migration ) .

Now Before we may use USMT in SCCM, we need to create the USMT Package in SCCM.

*There is One more important thing which is important in USMT and that is Hard Linking . *

Many of you wonder what exactly is Hardlinking .  Well !! Hardlinking is a used when we want to Migrate a Machine from One OS ( Say XP ) to Windows 7 , but the Underlying Hardware remains the same . Otherwise we may use SMP ( State Migration Point ) . Lets explain this in more detail , When we use USMT to Capture user settings we get an Option to Store the settings either locally or on SMP . If , we choose Locally it is called as Hard Linking. SMP is used in those cases where we want to replace a machine i.e We want to Migrate OS from machine a ( Let's say XP ) to Windows 7 on Machine B .

Below Figures will make this more clear :

http://sccmconfighelp.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/usmt.png?w=300&h=247

User State Migration Tool

In the Above Figure we have chosen  to save the user settings Locally. This is called Hard Linking.

http://sccmconfighelp.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/hardlinking.jpg?w=300&h=107