In this post I will explain how I demo migrating Windows XP to Windows 7 using hardlinking (or SMP). I do this on a fairly regular basis for customers to show the capabilities of SCCM.
If you want to do the same you will need some things in place in order to achieve the desired result.
My demo equipment is a few years old but does the job still: One Dell Latitude D630 with 4gb RAM, 320GB hdd running Server 2008 sp2 with HyperV enabled and running.
HyperV
The hyperv machines are setup as follows:
AD1 – One Windows Server 2008 sp2 Active Directory domain controller (dns/dhcp).
SCCM – One Windows Server 2008 sp2 Sccm server (SCCM 2007 SP2 R2 with MDT 2010 integration)
XP1 – One virtual machine called XP1 which we use to first deploy XP onto, and then to migrate from XP to Windows 7.
The Requirements:
* A working OSD environment with both Windows 7 and Windows XP captured WIM images
* Using the Two task sequences I am attaching here, advertise them to your Migrate XP to 7 X86 collection, make the advertisements optional.
Import these Task Sequences:
XP to W7 Demo – X86 using SMP.xml
XP to Windows 7 Demo – X86 using Hardlinking.xml
Obviously you will have to satisfy the reference requirements within those task sequences, you’ll need your MDT 2010 files and settings packages, a USMT 4 package containing both X86 and X64 bits, your X86 boot image, your Windows 7 WIM file, the ConfigMgr client…)
Ok once you have your requirements setup you’ll want to actually demo something.
Tasks to be performed before the Demo:
* Start HyperV and Start the AD1 server, after two minutes start the SCCM server.
* Delete the XP1 computer account in Active Directory Users and Computers in on AD1.
* Delete the XP1 computer and any USMT associations from within SCCM, remove it from the All Systems Collection.
* Verify that the computer record is gone by doing an Update Collection Membership and refresh on the All Systems collection
* restart the Windows Deployment Service to clear the PXE cache otherwise you may see the AbortPXE message when you try to boot the client
Tasks to prepare the Source computer for the demo.
Deploy XP to XP1
Using Computer Association, add XP1 to the Deploy XP SP3 collection, this collection has an optional advertisement of a Task Sequence called Deploy Windows XP advertised to it.
Click on the collection and verify that the computer is there, refresh it if not.
Boot the computer and initiate PXE boot, when you see the message at the bottom of the screen saying Press F12 to initiate Network boot, press F12
Click next through the WinPE screens and the XP os install should be completed in approx 24 minutes.
The Demo begins now:
On XP1:
After the windows xp os is installed, the computer will show the login screen for XP, at this point logon to the XP client as the following user:
login as
user = testuser
domain = server2008
.. wait a minute or two while your desktop is created…
In ConfigMgr:
use direct membership to add the computer to the migrate xp to 7 x86 collection, refresh the collection and verify that the computer is listed there
takes up to 5 minutes for the advertisements to show on the computer, so be patient, you can try a machine and user policy update while waiting.
USMT stuff…
copy the c:\i386 folder (or some documents, files, data) to the desktop (99MB).
create a new text file called Migrating from XP to Windows 7 on the desktop and write some text in it.
Start the Run Advertised Programs and choose one of the two DEMOS
a. *XP to W7 Demo X86 using Hardlinking*
This demo should take approximately 28 minutes to complete.
b. *XP to W7 Demo X86 using SMP*
This demo should take approximately 42 minutes to complete.
At this point verify that the computer association *in-place* has been setup in sccm. USMT will start and then initiate a reboot into Windows PE, after the reboot the Windows 7 captured wim file will be downloaded and installed, after the wim is applied it will auto apply drivers…setup windows and configmgr and then reboot. After this reboot, windows 7 setup starts and will install devices detected
another reboot later… setting up windows and configmgr again
setup is preparing your computer for first use….
then comes Restore User State…done…
at this point Windows 7 is installed and you will see the windows 7 login screen
login as the testuser described above and verify that USMT data is restored…
Demo complete, pat yourself on the back.
any questions ? let me know
cheers
niall.
