Review: Desktop personality migration software

NetResults | How we did it

According to market research firm IDC, 65% of the 138.9 million computers purchased this year will be purchased for business use. A large percentage of those computers will replace existing models. Some IT organizations leave it up to users to do things such as copy all their important files to a server and save copies of their Internet bookmarks. For many users that approach is not practical and results in a significant loss of productivity. We are all creatures of habit, and we typically have our computers set up just the way we like them - with desktop shortcuts and specific application settings. Getting a new computer setup to match an old one could be a significant task without the help of an automated tool.

We recently tested five personality transfer products to see which offer the best overall tool kit for getting the job done. We tested Altiris PC Transplant Pro 3.0, Miramar Systems Desktop DNA 2.5, PowerQuest Migration Manager 2.1, Symantec Ghost 7.0 and Tranxition Personality Tranxport Professional (PT Pro) 2.1. While some of these products offered additional functionality, we limited our tests to the personality transfer arena. The Symantec Ghost product was the only one that did not offer the migration feature as a separate product.Its "move user" function was tightly integrated with the rest of the Ghost package.

We deemed PC Transplant Pro from Altiris to be the best overall choice for personality transfer. PC Transplant Pro did a thorough job of migrating the personality of our machines, and had the most options and features of all the products we tested. Altiris also is the only company in the group to offer a comprehensive inventory solution that augments the migration process. However, it wasn't quite easy enough to use or administer to win our Blue Ribbon Award. When you are migrating hundreds of PCs, ease of use and administration are the tails that wag the dog. Miramar and Tranxition focus exclusively on the migration task, and both do the job well, with some caveats.

Three of the vendors - Altiris, PowerQuest and Symantec - offer disk-imaging utilities that merge exceptionally well with their personality transfer products. Altiris also offers a suite of tools under the Altiris eXpress title that help you assess the state of hardware prior to performing an in-place operating system upgrade. It makes sense to couple the disk imaging capability with the personality transfer functions to make the process as simple as possible.

The basic problem of migrating a computer's "personality" can manifest itself in several scenarios. First there's the new computer problem, where IT replaces the old computer with a shiny new model, complete with a new operating system and applications. Another scenario involves an in-place upgrade of the operating system. While there are other variations on the basic theme, these two pretty much cover the types of actions that must take place.

In the new computer case, it is common practice for the IT department to totally configure the machine with standard applications prior to delivering it to the user. That would also be the best time to transfer the user's personality. Numerous studies have shown that the support costs associated with an IT staff person visiting a user's desk can be significant. To minimize those costs, it makes sense to gather the personality information over the network so it can be applied prior to delivery.

The in-place upgrade presents another set of problems. A comprehensive inventory of existing systems is an essential step for any company considering a migration to a Windows 2000 operating system environment. Minimum memory and processor requirements must be met to ensure a successful operating system migration. Of the five products we tested, only PC Transplant Pro offered a product bundle that included an inventory component to address those requirements. If you're considering this type of upgrade, and you don't own a tool for hardware and software inventory, consider the Altiris product or some other third-party inventory device.

We focused on the transfer of files and settings between two computers. We originally intended to also test an "in-place" migration. After discussions with several of the vendors, we decided this method was just an extension of the machine-to-machine transfer in that most organizations that do this type of upgrade will wipe the hard drive clean and load a fresh image of the new operating system. The process of moving the personality is then essentially the same because you collect the personality information, save it to a network share and reapply the personality to the new operating system. The difference between the two is that some type of imaging software is required to load a copy of the new operating system.

All the programs we tested take slightly different approaches to the problem. Several, including Desktop DNA, let you migrate entire applications from one system to the next. You might not want to do that, especially when you're upgrading from an older version of Windows to something like Win 2000 or XP. Other products, such as PC Transplant Pro, won't even let you migrate an entire application. For commercial off-the-shelf software that probably makes sense, but for the large number of business users who want their corporate applications to follow them to their new machine, it might not.

The bottom line is to know your environment and have a clear understanding of what your requirements are. If you're strictly trying to help users through a new machine delivery process, then you'll be fine with most of the packages in this story. If you have lots of legacy code that also needs to move, take a closer look at those applications to see if they will work in the new environment and transfer without a reinstall.

Administration

One of the biggest challenges facing most IT staffs is how to automate any task that involves large numbers of users. In our case, we imagined using 1,000 desktop computers for a hypothetical migration effort. We then set out to evaluate each product as to how it could make an administrator's job easier.

Another pertinent issue is how to handle multiple users on the same computer. PC Transplant Pro offered the most options for handling computers with multiple accounts, including the ability to grab and migrate all users, selected users or a single user. Only users with administrator rights can migrate multiple users. On the target computer, PC Transplant Pro checks to see if the user executing the package has administrator rights and, if not, will only migrate that user's settings. Desktop DNA also supports multiple user migration and will allow an administrator to perform a migration without the requirement that the user log on.

In some cases you might want to map files from one location (for example the "My Documents" folder) to a different location on the new machine. All five products let you move files from one location to another as a part of the migration. Several let us filter files that get migrated based on some specified criteria. Desktop DNA uses a search mechanism and rules to find files that should be migrated to the new machine. Rules include application type, file extension, date and size. PC Transplant Pro and PT Pro have a similar file rule capability, allowing you to include or exclude files you wish to migrate.

We liked the way Symantec Ghost Enterprise Console uses the concept of "machine groups" to let you associate tasks such as gathering or deploying captured personalities to a specific group of users. Placing an individual computer into a "machine group" made it possible to gather or distribute user information in different ways, depending on the group.

You could accomplish the same thing with most of the other products, but none of them provided the same type of graphical grouping capability. The migration process is then scheduled as a task to run at a later date.

Altiris offers an additional tool called RapiDeploy that uses a small client program to enable image distribution from a server to multiple clients via IP multicasting. The RapiDeploy Aclient program loads as a service under Win 2000 and NT. In contrast to the other products, this same client can be used to execute migration without the need to have administrator privileges.

The rest of the products, Desktop DNA, Migration Manager and PT Pro rely on a command line method to execute their programs. They leave it up to administrators to decide how the process will take place, although recommended methods include using a management program such as Microsoft's System Management Server, through a logon script or by e-mailing a link or shortcut to each user. The logon script and e-mail method points to a share on a server where the appropriate program and template files have been stored.

We liked how Desktop DNA gave us a high level of control over the logs it creates throughout the migration process. The error and exception log can be set to four levels of detail, from general to very detailed, to help debug a misbehaving script file. They also provide additional network and debug logs that can be captured and sent to the vendor for analysis of any problem. Additional settings let you specify what level of compression to use in the DNA file, and what to do when files are found on the target machine that match those about to be written from the personality file.

Personality Tranxport Pro provides a profile-inventory management feature that eases the process of keeping track of different user profiles. We found the examples in its online help for adding the appropriate commands to logon scripts for NT and NetWare to be the most useful of all the products.

Migration Manager was the only product that didn't provide some sort of management console. PowerQuest says it was about to beta-test a new tool that would address a number of the deficiencies of its Migration Manager product, but it was not available in time for our testing.

Ease of use

Every product we tested required some sort of template file to specify what settings and applications to migrate. Each uses a slightly different method of creating these template files - from manual editing to an automated capture process. All the products we tested, with the exception of Migration Manager, have some sort of graphical user interface for building a template to capture the personality information.

PC Transplant Pro provided the highest number of wizards to help lead you through the steps required to move a personality. That can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The wizards are helpful the first time through, but after that, they just get in the way. However, more advanced users can use the command line options without using a wizard.

The Desktop DNA console was the most descriptive, telling us exactly what was happening at each step. It also provided a validation step that checked for conflicts or inconsistencies that might cause the migration to fail before the job was finished.

Migration Manager required the greatest amount of manual editing and configuration. To get the program to function correctly we had to edit an INI file to specify exactly what it should capture for you.

Several of the products offered tools for companies with custom software and associated custom settings that need to be moved. The Tranxition Migration Studio provides what it calls "deep migration script support" to let you gather the key information that identifies an individual user to a mission-critical application. Once the script has been created and debugged it can be dropped into PT Pro for use in migrating user information.

Desktop DNA had a utility called "muscle migration." This tool performed essentially the same task as the Tranxition Migration Studio; it searched through the registry looking for applications that it might migrate. It then proceeded to migrate either the entire application or only the settings, depending on how you configured it.

PC Transplant Pro included a tool called A2iBuilder, which stands for Application to Information Builder, and is essentially all the information required to migrate an application. This utility looks for unrecognized applications and gives you the option of building an "A2i" file that can be used to migrate user settings.

Performance

To measure the performance of each product, we executed the transfer process with special attention being paid to the steps and time required to complete the entire process. We focused on how an administrator would automate the task and not have to visit the user's work area during the migration. In our scenario, we assumed a new computer was replacing an existing one, meaning someone had to deliver the new computer to the user.

The final migration could either be done by the user or by the PC technician prior to delivery.

The amount of time required to perform the migration will vary depending on the number of files and how many files your machine has that need to be migrated. We configured our transfer rules to copy all files in the My Documents folder and every Microsoft Office file. With approximately 50M bytes of file data to copy out of a total of 2G bytes of data, our personality gathering process averaged around 10 minutes. All of the products took about the same amount of time to collect and build the personality transfer package.

Desktop DNA offers the option of performing the migration in real time over the network. In this scenario you run the program on both machines and designate one computer as the source and the other as the target. The migration takes place over the wire based on a template file that you specify. The advantage to this process is you don't have to keep an image of the personality on a server; you just move it from one computer to the next. One disadvantage is in the network settings, as you typically want to duplicate all the settings from the old machine onto the new one, which could cause conflicts on your network.

We liked the result of the Altiris extraction process. Once you accomplished the personality capture from the initial system, the Altiris software builds an executable file (.exe) that a user simply has to run once to transfer all the settings. Most of the other products required a client program for the capture and delivery of the personality package.

Desktop DNA uses individual script files for each application to properly migrate the user settings. The product comes with a large group of scripts covering the most popular applications. Miramar also posts new and updated scripts on its Web site. When you run Desktop DNA on the source machine, it identifies an initial set of scripts to run based on the applications it finds on that machine. You can also edit the template file to add or delete scripts if necessary.

Ghost was the only product that didn't attempt to migrate application settings. It strictly copies files and data along with the standard Windows settings. Ghost lets you specify individual registry entries, keys or hives.

In theory then, you could migrate application settings stored in the registry, but the process is not very straightforward and is potentially dangerous.

Migration Manager at least addresses application migration in its documentation, but it doesn't offer much more help than Ghost. To migrate applications you must edit a text file of commands that specify what files and registry entries to migrate. It offers suggestions on migrating Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes e-mail settings and how to accomplish the task with their command files.

The ability to undo a migration might come in handy depending on the results. All of the products but Migration Manager offered some sort of undo capability. In the new machine test, a failed migration would result in reloading the operating system image and any applications, and then reapplying the migration.

Documentation

Only two of the products we tested, PowerQuest Migration Manager and Symantec Ghost, came with printed documentation. That said, neither printed manual provided a voluminous amount of information. The section on moving or migrating users in the Ghost manual covers parts of five pages. The PowerQuest Migration Manager User Guide includes 60 pages of information and explanation of how to perform the proper tasks.

Altiris had the best electronic documentation of the bunch, using fully indexed and searchable Adobe Acrobat files. Symantec's documentation was more focused on the imaging capabilities of Ghost than anything else. The PT Pro program used the older-style Windows help files with a fair amount of indexing. The PT Pro Deployment Guide provided a good introduction to the concepts and actions required to successfully migrate a computer's personality. The Adobe Acrobat file includes graphics and illustrations that help to describe how PT Pro does its job.

Desktop DNA has a help button on each page that brings up information pertinent to the operation you are about to perform. That can come in handy when you need to know how to select a particular setting or option along the way. There's also a lot of descriptive text on each page that helps keep you on track for each task.

Installation and configuration

We paid particular attention to each install process, looking for any significant amount of configuration or manual intervention that was required. We also evaluated the need to load software on the client machines.

For the most part, these programs had two pieces of software that had to be loaded - one for the server and one for the client. The client software could be kept on the server for all the programs with the exception of Ghost, which requires the client driver to be installed locally. Running the required software from the server means you could send a link to a user via e-mail to have the PC launch the personality capture process.

Most all of the products tested provided an autorun CD that launched their installation program once you loaded the CD-ROM into the drive. The Symantec Ghost product stood out from the other products when it came to the installation process. There weren't a lot of questions that the user had to answer and you were on your way.

Choosing the right migration tool depends a lot on the job. Selecting the right tool also depends a lot on the job you're trying to accomplish. If your company is doing an in-place migration to a new operating system, you'll definitely want to look at the Altiris eXpress Migration Toolkit. It has everything you need to take inventory and then totally automate the upgrade process. If you need the ability to distribute standard disk images with operating system and applications in addition to migrating, you will want to look at the Altiris and Symantec products. If you only want to do basic personality migrations the Miramar and Tranxition products both offer unique capabilities.

Ferrill is a freelance writer in Lancaster, Calif. He's been writing about computers and networks for more than 15 years. He can be reached at paul.ferrill@verizon.net.