Ok, now I'm rereading posts. UserA's ntuser.dat is copied to the adsm.sys
directory. These are not automatically restored with the registry restore
so they will not overwrite the Administrators profile. You manually copy
UserA's profile from adsm.sys if you want to.
-----Original Message-----
From: Zlatko Krastev/ACIT [mailto:acit AT ATTGLOBAL DOT NET]
Sent: January 20, 2003 7:15 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: Is it ok to exclude ntuser.dat, and usrclass.dat ????
Re-reading most notifiable posts (kept in my Knowledge Base) I made a
second thought on this one. The result:
1. UserA is logged during backup. "C:\Documents and
Settings\UserA\NTUSER.DAT" & "C:\Documents and
Settings\UserA\ntuser.dat.LOG" are locked by Windows but are backed up as
HKCU hive.
2. Restore in done as Administrator (domain or local). HKCU hive goes to
the logged on user. Administrator's personalization is corrupt. UserA's
personalization data is not restored up to the last minute (if that user
was always logged during backups the restored customization might be
rather old).
Of course there are workarounds.
New (non-existing) user with administrator authority can be created and
used for restore. The Administrator account will not lose personalization
data (if any).
It can be determined *which* user was logged in during the last backup,
logon as that user and restore the registry again (including HKCU hive).
But these are workarounds not solutions. Of course this is M$ not TSM
problem. I was just thinking aloud.
Zlatko Krastev
IT Consultant
"Prather, Wanda" <Wanda.Prather AT JHUAPL DOT EDU>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
12.02.2002 23:22
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc:
Subject: Re: Is it ok to exclude ntuser.dat, and usrclass.dat
????
I also found the information you refer to in the Windows client manual,
and
I DISAGREE with it.
I will explain why I think so, in the hope that someone can correct me!
I agree you can exclude NTUSER.DAT.LOG and USRCLASS.DAT.LOG. (I think
these
files are only used to journal in-flight changes to profiles, and can't be
used after a restore.) But there are cases where I believe you should NOT
exclude NTUSER.DAT and USRCLASS.DAT.
MOST of the time, I think it is ok to exclude NTUSER.DAT (& USRCLASS.DAT
for
Win2K) on Windows SERVERS, but NOT on WinNT Wokstation or Win2KPro.
NTUSER.DAT is the file that stores what is generally called your "user
profile". These are customization settings that you choose for yourself
in
Windows and Windows applications. The info in this file is loaded into
the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key when you are logged on to Windows. Under
Win2K, even MORE of your customization is stored in USRCLASS.DAT.
The most obvious item of customization that is included, should you want
to
know for testing, is your wallpaper. But, depending on your levels of
Exchange/Outlook, some of those settings are stored here as well. And
even
MORE customization can get stored this way, if an application chooses to
store it there.
While you are logged on to a Windows machine, the NTUSER.DAT &
USRCLASS.DAT
files are locked by Windows and cannot be backed up by TSM. You will see
errors to that effect in dsmerror.log, and it annoys people to constantly
have those files show up as errors. And, TSM has a bypass - since TSM
can't
back up these files (or any other open registry files), TSM gets a copy of
the user profile information out of the registry for ALL LOGGED ON USERS,
and saves it into the c:\adsm.sys directory structure as part of the
registry backup. So the copy is there in adsm.sys after a full restore;
you
can drag it back to its proper location to restore your profile.
Now, if you are NOT logged on to your system at the time it backs up, TSM
will back up NTUSER.DAT just fine, like any other file. And you can
restore
that file with TSM, should you need to. If you are trying to do a
bare-metal restore, you can use a backed up copy of NTUSER.DAT from its
original location, OR one that you drag out of adsm.sys. A good copy of
either one works.
SO, where things get tricky, is if you exclude NTUSER.DAT and
USRCLASS.DAT,
and you AREN"T logged on at the time of backup, so that TSM doesn't copy
the
information during the registry backup. In this case, how do you restore
your profile? Answer: you don't. Also, you may find that people have
established multiple accounts on their system - each one has its own
NTUSER.DAT file. And if you exclude NTUSER.DAT, you will get backups via
the registry ONLY for those that are logged on at the time of the backup.
If you are backing up a lot of workstations, you just can't guarantee that
people either WILL or WON"T be logged on for sure. SO if you are backing
up
workstations with TSM, DON"T exclude the NTUSER.DAT & USRCLASS.DAT files.
Then you know for sure that your profiles are backed up either as part of
the registry backup, or as a flat file, no matter how many profiles exist
on
the workstation and how many are logged on at backup time.
Now this information probably doesn't apply, even for workstations, if
your
site uses ROAMING profiles. (Although I haven't worked with them, I think
in that case your profile is stored on a Windows server, and downloaded to
you no matter where you log on. ) And in environments where your desktops
are highly standardized, you may not care. But in a research environment
like we have here, we have MOSTLY power users, and desktops have lots of
customization; in this type of environment, users are NOT happy if you
claim you can restore their systems, but lose all their customization.
Now, if you are backing up only Windows SERVERS, the question is, what
profiles do you care about? For most servers, nobody cares at all.
Usually, the only people logging on to the Windows server console are
logged
on as Administrator, or they log on under their own accounts but use the
default profile, without doing any significant amount of customization. If
you don't care about your customization, then you can exclude NTUSER.DAT.
You may not get a backup of everyone's profile, but if you restore the
machine and someone logs in and their profile hasn't been restored, they
just get a copy of the DEFAULT profile, same as when they logged in the
first time (that's what the default profile is for).
BTW, we back up about 350 Win2K desktops, 50 WinNT desktops, 20 NT
servers.
And we can restore them down to the last icon, with all user
customization.
So I've done a LOT of restoring profiles. Most of the information I have
about profiles has been learn-by-doing, if anyone has a better explanation
or definitive documentation, PLEASE contribute! Glad for anyone to shoot
it
down if they can provide better info.
So there's my 2 cents (taxed or not taxed; although most days I find my
job
very taxing.... :>)
************************************************************************
Wanda Prather
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
443-778-8769
wanda_prather AT jhuapl DOT edu
"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think" -
Scott Adams/Dilbert
************************************************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Kwiatek [mailto:kkwiatek AT NIST DOT GOV]
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 10:12 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Is it ok to exclude ntuser.dat, and usrclass.dat ????
Is is ok to exclude the below files? I found this tivloi link that seems
to
indicate such:
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/services/datenhaltung/adsm/link/tsm-v42-books/win
c/ans60014.htm
exclude "*:\documents and settings\...\ntuser.dat.LOG"
exclude "*:\documents and settings\...\ntuser.dat"
exclude "*:\documents and settings\...\usrclass.dat.LOG"
exclude "*:\documents and settings\...\usrclass.dat"
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