[ale] Partially OT: moving apps from old to new PC's (non-Linux)

[griffisb]

Sorry to pollute the list with non-Linux stuff, but, ...

The info you guys gave me on backups and restoring has been very helpful. I was able to do a full backup from my laptop to a Samba Server, and set my son up as well. Restores - well, that's a different story. Need to scam a usb-drive to create emergency diskettes for my Win2K laptop and my son's WinXP laptop. Although Mondo and Mindi looked like a VERY cool thing, and does backups and bare-iron restores on dual-boot PC's. Think that's the next on my list. You can burn an emerency boot CD and restore from there. (yeah, think it's time to play Mondo and Mindi - unless there are other suggestions).

Anyway - the church I go to got new PC's for the office, and asked for help moving apps and data off the current PC's and on to the new ones. I thought of a few ideas, based on things we discussed on list and personal disasters ;-)

1. Do a hardware and software inventory on current PCs
2. Do a hardware inventory on each new PC
3. Set up a Samba server
3A. Do full backups from each PC
or
3B. Do partial backups of My Documents folder on each PC

4. Install apps from on-site CD's (yeah, right! Couldn't locate the original CD's and licenses last time!)

5. Restore My Documents folders from Samaba server

Since I seriously doubt if we'll be able to locate original CD's and licenses, the other thought is to backup from the current PCs and restore to the new ones (if that's possible), then change drivers to match new hardware. That's probably a bad idea (out-dated anti-vir, unlicensed software, lots of junk from several years of surfing).

If you were migrating a small office, would the first list of actions be the best bet? Can Ghost backup a running PC and transfer to a different PC and give you a working system?

[Greg]

Ghost by Norton. I have transferred many pc's that way. It (for me) has
been reliable and capable. I hear that now it even does Linux also. It can
move partition to partition or disk to disk. I have even used it for
backups.

I think partd (parted ?) is the Linux open source equivalent, but I have no
experience with it.

Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of
griffisb at bellsouth.net
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 5:05 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: [ale] Partially OT: moving apps from old to new PC's
(non-Linux)
Sorry to pollute the list with non-Linux stuff, but, ...
The info you guys gave me on backups and restoring has been very
helpful. I was able to do a full backup from my laptop to a Samba
Server, and set my son up as well. Restores - well, that's a
different story. Need to scam a usb-drive to create emergency
diskettes for my Win2K laptop and my son's WinXP laptop. Although
Mondo and Mindi looked like a VERY cool thing, and does backups
and bare-iron restores on dual-boot PC's. Think that's the next
on my list. You can burn an emerency boot CD and restore from
there. (yeah, think it's time to play Mondo and Mindi - unless
there are other suggestions).
Anyway - the church I go to got new PC's for the office, and
asked for help moving apps and data off the current PC's and on
to the new ones. I thought of a few ideas, based on things we
discussed on list and personal disasters ;-)
1. Do a hardware and software inventory on current PCs
2. Do a hardware inventory on each new PC
3. Set up a Samba server
3A. Do full backups from each PC
or
3B. Do partial backups of My Documents folder on each PC
4. Install apps from on-site CD's (yeah, right! Couldn't locate
the original CD's and licenses last time!)
5. Restore My Documents folders from Samaba server
Since I seriously doubt if we'll be able to locate original CD's
and licenses, the other thought is to backup from the current PCs
and restore to the new ones (if that's possible), then change
drivers to match new hardware. That's probably a bad idea
(out-dated anti-vir, unlicensed software, lots of junk from
several years of surfing).
If you were migrating a small office, would the first list of
actions be the best bet? Can Ghost backup a running PC and
transfer to a different PC and give you a working system?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

[Jonathan Glass IBB]

Also, check out PartImage from http://www.partimage.org/

Think Open Source ghost.

Jonathan

Post by Greg
Ghost by Norton. I have transferred many pc's that way. It (for me) has
been reliable and capable. I hear that now it even does Linux also. It can
move partition to partition or disk to disk. I have even used it for
backups.
I think partd (parted ?) is the Linux open source equivalent, but I have no
experience with it.
Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of
griffisb at bellsouth.net
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 5:05 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: [ale] Partially OT: moving apps from old to new PC's
(non-Linux)
Sorry to pollute the list with non-Linux stuff, but, ...
The info you guys gave me on backups and restoring has been very
helpful. I was able to do a full backup from my laptop to a Samba
Server, and set my son up as well. Restores - well, that's a
different story. Need to scam a usb-drive to create emergency
diskettes for my Win2K laptop and my son's WinXP laptop. Although
Mondo and Mindi looked like a VERY cool thing, and does backups
and bare-iron restores on dual-boot PC's. Think that's the next
on my list. You can burn an emerency boot CD and restore from
there. (yeah, think it's time to play Mondo and Mindi - unless
there are other suggestions).
Anyway - the church I go to got new PC's for the office, and
asked for help moving apps and data off the current PC's and on
to the new ones. I thought of a few ideas, based on things we
discussed on list and personal disasters ;-)
1. Do a hardware and software inventory on current PCs
2. Do a hardware inventory on each new PC
3. Set up a Samba server
3A. Do full backups from each PC
or
3B. Do partial backups of My Documents folder on each PC
4. Install apps from on-site CD's (yeah, right! Couldn't locate
the original CD's and licenses last time!)
5. Restore My Documents folders from Samaba server
Since I seriously doubt if we'll be able to locate original CD's
and licenses, the other thought is to backup from the current PCs
and restore to the new ones (if that's possible), then change
drivers to match new hardware. That's probably a bad idea
(out-dated anti-vir, unlicensed software, lots of junk from
several years of surfing).
If you were migrating a small office, would the first list of
actions be the best bet? Can Ghost backup a running PC and
transfer to a different PC and give you a working system?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

[Keith R. Watson]

Post by griffisb
Sorry to pollute the list with non-Linux stuff, but, ...
The info you guys gave me on backups and restoring has been very helpful.
I was able to do a full backup from my laptop to a Samba Server, and set
my son up as well. Restores - well, that's a different story. Need to scam
a usb-drive to create emergency diskettes for my Win2K laptop and my son's
WinXP laptop. Although Mondo and Mindi looked like a VERY cool thing, and
does backups and bare-iron restores on dual-boot PC's. Think that's the
next on my list. You can burn an emerency boot CD and restore from there.
(yeah, think it's time to play Mondo and Mindi - unless there are other
suggestions).
Anyway - the church I go to got new PC's for the office, and asked for
help moving apps and data off the current PC's and on to the new ones. I
thought of a few ideas, based on things we discussed on list and personal
disasters ;-)
1. Do a hardware and software inventory on current PCs
2. Do a hardware inventory on each new PC
3. Set up a Samba server
3A. Do full backups from each PC
or
3B. Do partial backups of My Documents folder on each PC
4. Install apps from on-site CD's (yeah, right! Couldn't locate the
original CD's and licenses last time!)
5. Restore My Documents folders from Samaba server
Since I seriously doubt if we'll be able to locate original CD's and
licenses, the other thought is to backup from the current PCs and restore
to the new ones (if that's possible), then change drivers to match new
hardware. That's probably a bad idea (out-dated anti-vir, unlicensed
software, lots of junk from several years of surfing).
If you were migrating a small office, would the first list of actions be
the best bet? Can Ghost backup a running PC and transfer to a different PC
and give you a working system?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

You can use ghost to migrate and existing installation to new hardware.
What a operating system are you trying to move?

keith

-------------

Keith R. Watson GTRI/ITD
Systems Support Specialist III Georgia Tech Research Institute
keith.watson at gtri.gatech.edu Atlanta, GA 30332-0816
404-894-0836

[Preston Boyington]

Greg wrote:
: Ghost by Norton. I have transferred many pc's that way. It (for me)
: has been reliable and capable. I hear that now it even does
: Linux also. It can
: move partition to partition or disk to disk. I have even used it for
: backups.
:
: I think partd (parted ?) is the Linux open source equivalent,
: but I have no
: experience with it.
:
: Greg
:

the only problem with Ghost i have noticed is it seemed... selective about some information it moved. on one machine that had a game (Half-Life to be exact), and I had to enter the cd key in after ghosting every time.

always wondered what else it didn't move. i was under the impression it was a "true" image, but if it doesn't take keys then that is not the case. maybe a "feature" to keep someone from using it for priacy.

maybe it is better with the newer, this was with "2000" and tried on several machines.

preston

[James P. Kinney III]

Post by griffisb
If you were migrating a small office, would the first list of actions be the best bet? Can Ghost backup a running PC and transfer to a different PC and give you a working system?

1. Inform them that nothing but the files they generated (word docs,
spread sheets, etc) and their browser bookmarks will be able to be
transfered.

2. Install Openoffice and instruct in how to use it to open all their
old word files.

3. Set up their new system to use Mozilla or Firefox as their default
browser. Set up their email to use Mozilla or Thunderbird as their
default. Merge in their old address book.

4. Park their old machine(s) near a network line so that when they
remember the file they put in that weird folder that they didn't move
over, it's easy to get at.

5. If the new machine has a big hard drive and the old machine is a
small one, copy the old drive into a folder on the new machine. Or
better, partition the new drive to include just enough space for the old
stuff and make the partition read only.

The windows registry can (and will) cause loads of problems if a ghost
image is dropped onto a new pile of hardware. The drivers won't work,
etc. and the new drivers will need to be installed. Adding new things to
a windows machine is bad enough from a stability standpoint. Removing
things is courting disaster. Most old software had really bad uninstall
tools and left all of the registry crap (best case) intact or (worst
case) half removed.
--
James P. Kinney III \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \ one Linux user /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \ at a time. /
770-493-8244 \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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[Jonathan Glass IBB]

One small addition: You can use the Sysprep tool from the Win2K/XP
cdrom to remove the hardware information. On the next boot it will
rerun the hardware detection routines. Of course, I highly/strongly
recommend that you pre-load the drivers (even if you just download them)
for the NIC and video card, so you can continue using the network after
the restore.

Jonathan

Post by James P. Kinney III

Post by griffisb
If you were migrating a small office, would the first list of actions be the best bet? Can Ghost backup a running PC and transfer to a different PC and give you a working system?

1. Inform them that nothing but the files they generated (word docs,
spread sheets, etc) and their browser bookmarks will be able to be
transfered.
2. Install Openoffice and instruct in how to use it to open all their
old word files.
3. Set up their new system to use Mozilla or Firefox as their default
browser. Set up their email to use Mozilla or Thunderbird as their
default. Merge in their old address book.
4. Park their old machine(s) near a network line so that when they
remember the file they put in that weird folder that they didn't move
over, it's easy to get at.
5. If the new machine has a big hard drive and the old machine is a
small one, copy the old drive into a folder on the new machine. Or
better, partition the new drive to include just enough space for the old
stuff and make the partition read only.
The windows registry can (and will) cause loads of problems if a ghost
image is dropped onto a new pile of hardware. The drivers won't work,
etc. and the new drivers will need to be installed. Adding new things to
a windows machine is bad enough from a stability standpoint. Removing
things is courting disaster. Most old software had really bad uninstall
tools and left all of the registry crap (best case) intact or (worst
case) half removed.

[griffisb]

From: "Greg" <runman at speedfactory.net>
Date: 2004/03/31 Wed PM 05:18:07 EST
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
Subject: RE: [ale] Partially OT: moving apps from old to new PC's (non-Linux)
Ghost by Norton. I have transferred many pc's that way. It (for me) has
been reliable and capable. I hear that now it even does Linux also. It can

Can Ghost run from CD, or do you have to install it? I'd be working on 5 PCs or
so, and don't think the church would buy 5 licenses. I've done Norton Utilities
from CD to correct some errors, was wondering if Ghost worked the same.

[Geoffrey]

I've got to say, this is a perfect opportunity to move them to Linux.
Save them money, and have more robust systems.

Don't tell me they can't learn it, my 60+ mother-in-law is on SuSE 9.0
right now and has been on Linux for a couple of years now.

Email and browser at first. Most recently using OpenOffice to maintain
the family reunion address book.

[griffisb]

From: "Keith R. Watson" <keith.watson at gtri.gatech.edu>
You can use ghost to migrate and existing installation to new hardware.
What a operating system are you trying to move?
keith

The current PCs are Win95 and Win98. So a backup/restore wouldn't be the way to
go (new PCs on XP). So - it would be save the My Documents folders and go from
there. I should thunk before posting!