How to Troubleshoot Issues with the User State Migration Tool and the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard

SUMMARY:

This topic gives information to help you to troubleshoot problems with the User State Migration Tool (USMT) and the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (FSTW).

MORE INFORMATION:

To assist you to troubleshoot problems with USMT or FSTW:

1. Note that the USMT tools simply help the migration of domain user profiles, not those profiles that are in a workgroup.

2. If you are using Loadstate.exe, confirm that:

a. Loadstate.exe is being run by a user who has local administrator access, but is not the user that is being migrated.

b. The user that is being migrated does not previously contain a profile on the target PC.

3. Observe the System Event logs, and get the exact error message and Event ID. In most cases, the event logs specify why the tool is not working.

4. When you are using FSTW, analysis the Fastwiz.log log file. Look for errors towards the end of the log that may specify the reason for the failure. In Windows XP, the Fastwiz.log log file is located in the c:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Application Data folder. If the source operating system is not Windows XP, search for the log, and note that it is in %CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA% .

5. Get operating system information about both sides, have version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, and any other relevant program versions that are running on the PC. The command line tool produce the log files (Scanstate.log and Loadstate.log) in the current folder.

6. Get the accurate steps that are required to reproduce the problem. This information may help you to better know what specifically is wrong, and help you to reproduce the problem in your testing environment.

7. If you are making use of the command-line tools (USMT), run them with the /v 7 switch to generate the most comprehensive log file.

8. The estimated total space that FSTW wants in temporary area and on the destination drive is around 4 times the size of the store that is used. It unpacks the store in the temporary area (the local fixed drive with the greatest amount of free disk space). The unpacked data is around 2 times the size of the store, based on a 50 percent compression ratio. Once this, FSTW copies every file from the temporary area to the destination without deleting it. Once this process finishes, the temporary area is cleaned up.

9. It may get major time to restore all of the data, especially if the store is large. At some points it may happen that the PC has stopped responding. You must provide the migration enough time before you can safely guess that the process is actually not responding. There is a point (at about 40 to 50 percent in the progress bar) where, for big stores with plenty of files, a long amount of time passes without activity in the progress bar. Be confident to look for drive action to find out if the process has hung. If the process is not responding, try the operation again in a clean boot situation by using the System Configuration Utility (Msconfig.exe) or in Safe mode.