Offline USMT not working correctly in SCCM 2012 MDT-integrated Task Sequence

Hi all. I am trying to get Offline USMT Capture and Restore working but failing to do so.

A little background info:

I am using a SCCM 2012 SP1 environment with MDT 2012 integrated.

I have a Windows 7 Deployment Task Sequence that I intend to use to refresh old Win 7 builds or upgrade Win XP builds.

My testing of the Online USMT (with hardlinks) has been 100% successful - i.e. I start the Win 7 Deployment TS from the desktop. The computer Captures the user state to c:\StateStore, reboots the machine, copies the new image, configures the OS and restore the user state.

My testing of the Offline USMT (with hardlinks) has been a 100% failure.

I disabled the section "Online USMT", however now the TS completes the re-image of the PC but there has been no OFfline USMT capture (and therefore no restore). There is no scanstate.log or loadstate.log created.

This leads me to believe that State Capture is not even starting - however I cannot find evidence or this in the smsts.log file.

I think my biggest problem is the lack of understanding on where/when/how certain parts of the Task Sequence are executed/skipped based upon the various OS Task Sequence Variables.

All the instuctions I have seen on Offline USMT in SCCM 2012 use the standard SCCM 2012 Task Sequences - none seem to refer to MDT 2012 integrated Task Sequences.

Has anyone got this working successfully in SCCM 2012 with MDT 2012 TS's?

Resources I have read (all which are using SCCM 2012 Task Sequences)

http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1735-using-offline-mode-in-windows-pe-using-usmt-4-via-a-task-sequence-in-sccm-2007-sp2/

http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/post/capture-user-files-and-settings-offline-winpe-or-online-fullos-with-configmgr-2007/

http://sccm.haas.se/?p=272


April 11th, 2013 3:34pm

By default, the Offline USMT capability in an MDT 2012 U1 Task Sequence only runs if you are using the UDI Wizard.  If you are not using the UDI Wizard, then you need to start playing with the task sequence logic and variables to get this to work.
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April 11th, 2013 7:38pm

I am not going to be using the UDI wizard.

It seems to me that there are a couple of bugs in the USMT Task Sequence steps

.

#1) If you want to an Online State Capture with Hardlinks, selecting the Option "Capture Locally by using links instead of copying files" causes the Online State Capture to fail.

This is because the switches /hardlink /nocompress is used by default and enabling the option above adds a second set of /hardlink /nocompress commands which leads to an incorrect scanstate command

(This problem has been discussed here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmanagerosd/thread/bf2aad16-3fb8-4b25-93af-6e8f96df7a85/


Madluka: I see that you contributed to that thread as well)

*NOTE: The Online USMT steps run if the TSV USMTOfflineMigration = FALSE

.

#2) If you want an Offline State Capture with Hardlinks, selecting the Option "Capture in offline mode (WinPE only)" causes the Task Sequence to fail.

I assume the outcome of selecting the above option is meant to set the TSV USMTOfflineMigration = TRUE so that the Offline State Capture portion of the Task Sequence is executed.

However the TS fails with the error "This step can only run in WinPE" (or something similar as I don't have the exact error log available).

This logic makes no sense to me at all. The option "Capture in offline mode (WinPE only)" by it's definition is meant to enable WinPE capture but why does it try to execute while online?

.

#3) To get Offline State Capture to work, I had to do the following:

a) disable the Online State Capture section of the Task Sequence

b) manually set USMTOfflineMigration = True

.

I do not think my solution is a very elegant one so there must be something that I am missing.

If I am configuring something incorrectly please let me know!

USMT has proved to be far more frustrating that I had hoped!




April 12th, 2013 5:44am

You are not configuring anything incorrectly, it is just that the MDT Client Task Sequence is set to work in a specific way - and changing any of the USMT options via the GUI for hardlinking or online/offline options just won't work.  In order to use those options you need to substancially re-arrange and alter the way the steps in the task sequence are processed.  This you have found out by having to disable sections and set the required variable(s).

In a nutshell, out of the box, the MDT Client Task Sequence DOES NOT perform Offline USMT in a Zero Touch scenario.

Andy

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April 12th, 2013 12:52pm

Hi Andy, thanks for that.

I guess my next question is, how do you instruct a SCCM2012 MDT-based Task Sequence to use the State Migration Point (i.e. do not use hardlinks)?

The "bug" in the Capture User State Task Sequence step means that "/hardlink /nocompress" is enabled even if the option "Capture Locally by using links instead of copying files" is not selected.

I need to use the SMP to backup User state to the SMP so that I can rebuild laptop's with hard disks encrypted with McAfee (the easiest way to do this is Online USMT to SMP > Format laptop Harddisk > Install OS > Restore USMT from SMP)

Thanks!

UPDATE: I have attempted to force the SMP to be used by manually setting the TSV USMTLocal = False. However due to the same "bug" #1 I mentoined before, the Scanstate command has /hardlink /nocompress added to the SMP scanstate command causing the entire command to fail (you cannot use /encrypt (used with Remote SMP User State Migration) with the /nocompress commmand.

Due to the bug, my full scanstate command becomes:

\\SCCM2012.Domain.com\SMSPKGE$\X010001B\amd64\scanstate.exe \\SCCM2012.Domain.com\SMPSTORED_43ED5DB3$\E1A1B10CEAD6AB8992970176AD25D3F712515C618546AF67EEB573BE8114E06E /o /localonly /encrypt /keyfile:**** /efs:copyraw /v:5 /c /l:C:\Windows\CCM\Logs\SMSTSLog\scanstate.log /progress:C:\Windows\CCM\Logs\SMSTSLog\scanstateprogress.log /i:\\SCCM2012.Domain.com\SMSPKGE$\X010001B\amd64\migdocs.xml /i:\\SCCM2012.Domain.com\SMSPKGE$\X010001B\amd64\migapp.xml /hardlink /nocompress

So is there any other way of using the SMP for State Capture?


April 13th, 2013 12:47am

If you have systems that are encrypted with a third party tool then you will likely need to have the rebuild process as two seperate task sequences - as the WinPE boot image cannot be successfully staged to an encrypted disk.  With Bitlocker, we can simply disable the protectors to get around this - but third party encryption tools may not provide this mechanism.

There are two task sequences involved - a "Client Replace" task sequence and your usual "Client Task Sequence".   The Client Replace Task Sequence simply makes a request to the SMP and then performs an online USMT and then releases the state store.  That is all, and it just works.  An "in-place" computer association will be created.  The main difference in the USMT capture behaviour in a Client Replace task sequence is that the "Determine local or remote userstate" step is not present - thus Hardlinking is never used.  The ZTIUserState.wsf will always prefer to set the /hardlink /nocompress options if sufficient disk space is present.  This, I believe, is the "bug" which is causing you some issues - but it's just something you need to understand and change your process around.

You then need to reboot the system and boot from PXE/USB to start your regular deployment task sequence and the captured user data will be restored.  Again, this sort of just works - but a slight change is required in the MDT 2012 Task Sequence as the steps to restore from an SMP are missing - a little oversight I think but I cover this in my blog article here > http://madluka.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/mdt-2012-update-1-missing-request-state-store-step-causes-state-restore-to-fail-from-state-migration-point/

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April 13th, 2013 7:04pm

Hi Andy,

You are right I didn't even think of the issue of pre-staging the boot media to an encypted disk - of course it will fail once it reboots and tries to continue the TS.

I will work on your suggestion of having 2 TS's to achieve the rebuild of encrypted laptops

(McAfee do have a "tool" to help in a rebuild scenario but it is for an older version of the encryption softwrae being used here and even then it's seems like a bigger nightmare to get working)

After playing around with the TSV's I have successfully managed to run successful rebuild's using the following state capture methods:

.

1. Online State Capture to SMP ok. State Restore from SMP ok.

2. Online State Capture using Hardlinks ok. State Restore from hardlinks ok.

3. Offline State Capture using Hardlinks ok. State Restore from hardlinks ok.

.

The only one I can't seem to do is the final type 4. Offline State Capture using SMP

The Task Sequence steps Request State Store/Capture User State/Release State store are designed to only work online (i.e. cannot be run offline in WinPE).

When using Offline State Capture what TSV forces the SMP to be used instead of Hardlinks in the step "Offline User State Capture"?

In an online state capture, setting USMTLOCAL = FALSE achieves this but it does not work for offline state capture

.

Thanks in advance for your help - I would be still banging my head against the wall otherwise!


April 14th, 2013 8:05am

I'm not even sure that Offline Capture to an SMP is even supported - I haven't tried this but it smacks of permissions and client associations issues.

Andy

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April 15th, 2013 2:21pm

I thought I would chip in to this thread since I've been trying to do the same thing

SCCM 2012 SP1 CU1 with MDT 2012 SP1. Using the standard MDT Client Task sequence. I reason that its preferable to do an OFFLINE USMT to be sure of capturing everything.

I found the same issues as GeekierThanYou. Online USMT works fine, but problem with offline. Here's what I have done so far

1. Added line into customsettings.ini USMTOfflineMigration=TRUE. This tells the Task sequence to skip the group  "Online USMT" and process the group "Offline USMT"

2. Task Sequence still fell over at the end trying to restore local accounts. After checking various threads I added an addition step into the Offline USMT group before the state capture to set variable OSDMigrateAdditionalCaptureOptions=/ue:%_SMSTSMachineName%\*  This tells the scanstate to ignore local accounts

3. Not related to this thread but I also found that you must have a Restart Computer step (which is already in the default Task Sequence but I had remmed out). Without it I found none of the applications installed !!

Having made these changes I find the refresh works fine. Executes USMT in offline Winpe phase and restores the Domain profiles correctly.

The only downside as I see it is that there is no checking for local or remote state as run in the Online USMT section (but then having said that if its using hardlinks maybe that isn't an issue)

Also as noted in the Capture User State step in Online USMT ticking the box to capture using hardlinks makes it fail because of adding the parameters twice. Also the Capture in offline mode also seems to make it fail. This seems like a bug to me since why have those tick boxes if they don't work ! I would have thought that the best option is to run the Online section but tick both those boxes so that if the process can it captures locally using hardlinks in offline WinPE mode. But as I said it does appear to work fine with the changes detailed above. Interested to see other people's thoughts here.

July 17th, 2013 2:37am

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