In response to recent postings about restoring user
profiles with the ADSM NT Client, here are some ways to ensure
that you can restore them with ADSM.

NT stores current user profile information in the registry
under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key on the local machine.  NT
also stores user profile information in file ntuser.dat in
each user's directory in \winnt\profiles.

To restore user profile information, one of the following must be done:
EITHER
  1.) the file ntuser.dat must be backed up
OR
  2.) the current user profile key must be backed up


How to do this with ADSM:
------------------------
1.) Backing up ntuser.dat:
1.) Backing up ntuser.dat:
    ---------------------
    If a user is logged onto NT and runs an ADSM backup, the
    ntuser.dat file is not backed up by ADSM.  The same thing
    happens if the scheduler is run under the user. This is because
    ntuser.dat is open and ADSM does not backup open files.

    To backup and restore ntuser.dat, you can do the following:
    a.) Log on as another user and backup ntuser.dat manually.
        This other user can also then restore ntuser.dat for you.
    OR
    b.) Install the scheduler as a service and run it when no other
        user is logged onto the system.  Then the ntuser.dat files
        will be backed up for each user.

2.) Backing up the current user profile key:
    ---------------------------------------
    A user can run "regback" to backup all their registry keys,
    including HKEY_CURRENT_USER.  However, if the scheduler runs
    as a service when no user is logged on, there are no current
    user profile keys in the registry for the scheduler to back up.

    To backup and restore the user's current profile keys,
    you can do the following:

        Log onto NT and run "dsmc regback user curuser" to backup
        current user profile keys.  Enter "dsmc regrest user curuser"
        to restore the user's user profile keys.  To ensure regular
        backups of the current user profile keys, you can create a
        .bat file containing "dsmc regback user curuser"
        and put this .bat file in the user's startup folder. Since
        the user keys are backed up under user, not system, they
        are backed up.


I hope this helps clear up any confusion.

Lori Simcox
ADSM Client Development