In <349010B4.249C3CCA AT select DOT com>, on 12/11/97 at 11:11 AM,
   Brad Diefendorf <bradd AT SELECT DOT COM> said:

>The problem I have is the apparent inability of ADSM to be able to
>restore a Windows95 registry onto a running system.  The only way I
>have been able to successfully restore the Windows 95 registry, is to
>install Windows95 on a second hard drive, restore the original drive
>using ADSM, then re-install Windows 95 on top of that data.  It's
>messy,

>but it seems to work.

>Has anyone found a better/easier alternative to this?

That is the only method I have found to work reliably.  To speed up
the whole process, I have done the following, and you need a "spare"
machine to do the initial setup (and you will be creating an extra
"node" to store the kick-start backup); but it makes the process fast
and painless.

 1) Do a "fresh" install of an absolutely minimal Win95 system
    (no accessories, no nothing except the absolute minimal install)
    into a reserved directory name.  I use C:\KICKER.  You need to
    have TCP/IP networking installed only.  If you have DHCP on your
    network, so much the better!

 2) Install the ADSM Client code.

 3) Copy all the Windows 95 CAB files into C:\WINCAB.

 4) Convert the Windows system to short file names (using LFNBACK).

 5) Go into the "System" settings, reset the video to standard VGA.

 6) Reboot, and then WITHOUT REBOOTING AGAIN, go into the "Device
Manager"
    and remove EVERY device from the system except the network card,
    starting with the BOTTOM  MOST piece of hardware.

 7) Label the C: volume as KICKOFF and do an incremental to your new
    "disaster node" (I called mine "KABOOM").

You can now "reformat" your test machine.

On all your clients add the following to the Include/Exclude list (the
incremental should be set to copy EVERYTHING, including windows
itself).

  Exclude *:\WINCAB\...\*
  Exclude *:\ADSM\...\*
  Include *:\ADSM\...\*.OPT

Now, you need to make a "Disaster Recovery" boot diskette.  I use a
Win95 DOS disk and have put all the useful commands on it (FORMAT,
FDISK, etc).  It needs to be able to use TCP/IP to connect to ADSM.  I
use the ODI network stack and PCTCP (we have lots of licenses, and it
can fit everything EXCEPT the ADSM DOS client on a single diskette).
Include FTP.EXE on the diskette also.

On an internal FTP server, put the components of DSMDOS needed to
connect over PCTCP, including an OPT file.


Now, to recover any Win95 machine, do the following:

1) boot with your "magic" recovery disk and fdisk/reformat the target
2) ftp to your ftp server and retrieve the DOS client (I put in
C:\DSMDOS) 3) do a DSMFTPC restore -sub=y -rep=a {KICKOFF}\* C:\
-node=KABOOM
Reboot the client machine.  When it comes up Win95 will run the full
Reboot the client machine.  When it comes up Win95 will run the full
hardware detection and set everything up to run properly (assuming the
network drivers are included in the base distribution or you have them
on diskette.

4) Run the DSMC (or DSM GUI) restore against the node that you need to
recover using the -sub=y -rep-a parameters.

5) POWER OFF THE MACHINE when the restore is complete.  DO NOT SHUT
DOWN.

6) Reboot, and delete the \KICKER and \DSMDOS directories.

Requires a little prep time, but a complete Win95 machine can be
restored from the "bare metal" using only a single diskette (or
perhaps two if "working" network adapter drivers are not included in
the base Win95)

It takes me about 10 minutes (exclusive of "data transfer" time) to
recover a Win95 machine.  I also took a "standard" machine and backed
that up into another filespace in the KABOOM node (with all the
devices deleted to trigger a hardware detection on reboot).  So now
setting up a new machine uses the same methodology -- the only
difference is the source of the running system image.

You do NOT need to do anything "weird" with your normal Win95 backups
since they will be restored with a full Win32 client.  Only the
"temporary" KICKOFF will need to be short-namified.

At step 5 you must HARD RESET or POWER OFF because Billy updates some
pointers (particularly MSDOS.SYS) at shutdown which will result in the
KICKOFF system coming back up rather than the restored one.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Keith Medcalf       (416) 410-5791       http://www.dessus.com/ IBM
OS/2, LAN Server, DB2, TCP/IP, DOS, Windows 95,  Windows NT
 Finger or email kmedcalf-pgp AT dessus DOT com for my PGP Public Key