One of the most popular tools to migrate user profiles from one Windows computer to another is the set of CLI utilities – User State Migration Tool (USMT), which is a part of a Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit. USMT tool allow you to automate and simplify the process of migrating the users’ environment and profile while deploying Windows and on another cases.
The transfer of user data takes place in two steps, one of which takes place on the old one and the other one on the new computer. USMT can migrate operating system settings, applications, and even access control lists (ACLs). This means that the user’s access permissions on the target computer will be exactly the same as they were on the source system.
Migrating User Profiles using USMT
The latest currently available version of USMT 10 allows you to migrate user settings and profiles and apply settings from operating systems starting from Windows 7 and up to Windows 10. An important difference from the previous version of this utility is the ability to collect the settings in Offline mode (not while running operating system). If you want to use USMT on older systems (Windows XP, Windows Vista), then you must use version USMT 3.0.1.
You can download the ADK for Windows 10 here.
To install ADK on your admin’s workstation or on source computer, run adksetup.exe file and select User State Migration Tool (USMT) to install:
After the installation is complete, you can find the USMT files in the directory c:Program Files (x86)Windows Kits10Assessment and Deployment KitUser State Migration Tool (later you can copy these files to the source computer).
This utility consists of two console programs scanstate.exe and loadstate.exe, as well as a set of XML files describing the process of collecting and applying settings.
Data transfer using USMT can be performed in two steps: exporting data from the source computer using the ScanState command and importing data on the target computer using the LoadState.
USMT allows you to write data to a local disk, removable USB drive or to a network share, but cannot directly transfer data across the network directly from the source to the target computer.
Saving a User Profile with USMT
The first stage of the transfer takes place on the source (old) computer. To collect user data, the scanstate command is used.
Scanstate.exe scans the computer according to the specified requirements, creates a repository, and collects user profiles and accounts, application and OS settings, files and registry keys and other data.
Note. From Windows 10 1607, USMT can’t migrate start menu layout. Instead it you must use Export-StartLayout and Import-StartLayout cmdlets.
The USMT utility creates 4 migration files (in .XML format) that store rules for migrating various kinds of data:
- xml — contains rules for transferring user data;
- xml — contains rules for transferring user profiles;
- xml — document transfer rules;
- xml — covers information on the components that are excluded from the transfer.
To migrate all accounts and user settings from one computer to another, run the command:
scanstate fs1migruserdata /i:miguser.xml /i:migapp.xml /o
To migrate only two user accounts from one computer to another:
scanstate fs1migruserdata /ue:** /ui:corpuser1 /ui:corpuser2 /i:miguser.xml /i:migapp.xml /o
For example, to create encrypted store (with an encryption key – StR0n51) on a network shared folder using specified configuration files, you can use the following command:
scanstate fs1migrmystore1 /i:migapp.xml /i:miguser.xml /o /config:config.xml /encrypt /key:"StR0n51"
Also you can use USMT to perform offline profile migration. Boot your system into Windows РЕ environment and run ScanState to export user’s profiles settings.
Another one interesting way to use USMT is to perform a backup of user profiles on some critical computers.
Migrating and Deploying a User Profile with USMT
The second stage of transferring the user profile is performed on the target (new) computer. To complete the migration, use the loadstate.exe command. The loadstate utility imports (unpacks) all store items to the target computer.
To load on source computer all profiles from store created earlier, run:
loadstate fs1migruserdata /i:miguser.xml /i:migapp.xml
If you want to transfer user’s profile and move a user from one domain to another:
loadstate fs1migruserdata /mu:/ui:corpuser:/ui:corp2user /i:miguser.xml /i:migapp.xml
For example, to load user profiles from encrypted store on a network shared run the command:
scanstate fs1migrmystore1 /i:migapp.xml /i:migapp.xml /i:miguser.xml /decrypt /key:"StR0n51"
- How to Fix Your PC Ran Into a Problem and Needs to Restart? - August 9, 2020
- How to Perform a RAM Check in Windows 10? - August 9, 2020
- How to Migrate DHCP Server to Windows Server 2016/2019? - August 7, 2020
Is there a way to deploy it to Azure AD domain?
Hi Jim
NO :-/ As the main developer of USMTGUI
I’ve discussed this directly with David James (Chief developer on SCCM at Microsoft) and with main Azure developers numerous times and the answer is the same all over.
It’s apparently NOT gonna happen.
What I personally wanted the most was a way to migrate my stuff OUT of there!
This whole cloud thing makes me more and more seriously worried:
What will happen when in 10 years we all,GLOBALLY, has handed over ALL our data and ALL our systems to Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Apple. four global businesses?
Think about that…
Hi
This is how we did until this Tuesday where our universe took a spin, as I got into contact with Thomas Ehler from Denmark. He runs EhlerTech.com and they produce two extremely nice products :-D
USMTGUI – simply a really great GUI for USMT
User Profile Central (UPC) – a central management interface for running USMT remotely.
With the latter my primary technician has, during ONE day, moved over 50 users from a newly obtained company’s AD to our AD.
We anticipated this to take weeks but we will have finished the +100 employees well before Monday.
/Lars – Safe-con.se
bonjour,
je suis désolé mais je suis en début d’étude d’informatique et je suis nul.
si j’ai bien compris, pour que je puisse migrer un ordinateur de W7 à W10, il faut que je prenne une clé usb que je copie le chemin dis en dessus et puis que je mette la clé usb sur le pc de l’utilisateur que je veux migrer.
puis tout simplement double cliquer sur scanstate.exe
installer W10 puis répéter les actions en cliquant cette fois sur loadstate ???
svp soyez indulgent …
I’m using USMT to migration Win7 to Win10, and I would like to know how can I move all PST files from each user to another folder on users profile.
I need to make this cause the machine have many profiles and if the PST files was restored to default Destination (keeped on Documents), when OneDrive will show an error trying to upload the PST files.
This is the reason that I need to change the files to another folder inside profile.
Example:
Original Local -> C:\Users\John\Documents\Outlook
New Destination -> C:\Users\John\PST
Thanks
Luiz Maciel