It's weird. During discussions of backups and disk imaging, people become really involved talking about Sysprep, when it has nothing to do with disk imaging. It only prepares a system for disk imaging.
Thanks for the advice, I will read the Windows 2000 sysprep docs.
Now I understand the problem. NTBackup is deliberately crippled. It does NOT make fully functional copies of the OS and installed programs. That's the whole issue, and the reason for this Ask Slashdot.
The backup program you are mentioning is NTBackup.exe. NTBackup does NOT make a full hard disk backup. It does not back up all the information necessary to making a bootable copy. This has been verified by Microsoft reps many times. So, you could do a restore and find that the restored copy was useless.
As you say, RIS does not make backups, either. It requires a second, almost identical computer. And RIS comes only with software that costs $2,200, if I remember correctly.
The only way to make a backup is to image the drive. That's how we came to be discussing imaging. This can ONLY be done with third-party software, for which, as you say, Microsoft is not responsible. Therefore, Microsoft provides no Microsoft-supported way to make fully functional full hard disk OS backups, as Microsoft readily admits. And THAT is outrageous, destructive, and self-destructive.
NASA did development, but the Physics of Magnetic Resonance was known a long time ago. CAT is Computer Assisted Tomography. The concept is old, but needed to wait until computers were powerful and cheap enough.
Please tell me how to do a full backup using software that comes with the retail Windows XP CD. It's impossible, right? If it is impossible, that's outrageous. People need to be able to make full working copies of their OS and installed programs. That's everyone, not just people who have special software.
If you have a problem with Ghost, you go to Symantec. That breaks Microsoft's chain of responsibility. Therefore, Microsoft does not provide a Microsoft-supported way to do a full hard disk backup. There is a link in the chain that is not supported by Microsoft. And, as many people have said in this story, people have a LOT of problems with Ghost.
With Windows 98, XCopy32.EXE could make a full hard disk backup. Yes, I know it would sometimes re-assign short file names. However, those could be re-named by hand.
How do I get a copy of RIS? Will RIS make a CD backup? If RIS works, why do so many people recommend Ghost, or all the others? I seem to remember reviewing RIS and discovering it would not do what is needed.
There certainly is a problem here, but I don't know what it is. Microsoft's behavior is outrageous. The average user has no way to back up the OS to another partition on the drive or to CD.
What is DR?
There have been numerous people complaining intensely. However, I don't see any error in what I've said. You have talked about RIS, but I understand that is only for people who are connected to a domain. Also, I seem to remember that RIS is not available to everyone. And, there is no provision for making a backup, I understand. For example, there is no way to copy everything to CD.
You are certainly right about the wording. However, Microsoft does NOT support the third party disk imaging tools, in spite of the wording, and those tools often cause problems.
What is the best imaging software to use? That's the question.
NTBackup.exe will definitely not work. That's certain and well-known.
This is a misconception. The System State does NOT include the entire OS. Microsoft technical support representatives have verified this. If you do what you say, you will have a machine with two SIDs. This causes MAJOR problems. Microsoft says there is NO way to recover from that condition.
I've done it successfully a lot. The Slashdot question is about which software you use for drive imaging, and what is your experience with it. EVERYONE is having occasional problems. Those problems seem to stem from the fact that there is NO Microsoft support for the third-party imaging tools.
"... it doesn't matter WHAT imaging software you use..."
The Ask Slashdot question is what drive imaging software do you use, and what is your experience with it?
Microsoft provides NO support for making drive images. All the software that makes drive images has problems. Part of the problems may be that there is NO support from Microsoft. These are third-party tools, and they are NOT supported.
It's an official fact. Although it is possible with third-party tools, and absolutely necessary, Microsoft does not officially support making functional backups, or clones. We use those tools, but Microsoft provides no support if there are problems.
Sysprep is used, but it does not do cloning. That's what the Slashdot article is about: How do you clone the resulting image? What is your best method for doing this?
This is Windows 2000 Sysprep Tool 1.1. The latest version is 2.0, apparently. This is not available on the Internet, apparently.
Sysprep only 1) changes the SID, and 2) sometimes helps with IDE drivers.
Sysprep does NOT make backups, as some seem to imply.
I haven't used it, but judging from Microsoft's documentation, NewSID from Sysinternals may be better. Microsoft says that SIDs can become unsynchronized so that Sysprep cannot fix them.
Windows backup cannot make fully functional copies of the Windows OS drive. This has been verified many times by Microsoft technical support personnel. There is nothing provided with the file system or with most copies of Windows XP (Professional and Home) that can make fully functional copies of the OS drive.
Sysprep does not make backups. It only prepares an image for cloning to an identical machine. Most people don't have Sysprep. Sysprep is NOT supplied with the Home or Professional versions of Windows XP, and is NOT available on the Internet. Sysprep is supplied with support contracts and with the Corporate version of Windows XP.
Nothing Sysprep can do makes a fully functional image of a hard drive. For that you need unsupported third-party tools. That's what the story is about.
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It's weird. During discussions of backups and disk imaging, people become really involved talking about Sysprep, when it has nothing to do with disk imaging. It only prepares a system for disk imaging.
Thanks for the advice, I will read the Windows 2000 sysprep docs.
Now I understand the problem. NTBackup is deliberately crippled. It does NOT make fully functional copies of the OS and installed programs. That's the whole issue, and the reason for this Ask Slashdot.
The backup program you are mentioning is NTBackup.exe. NTBackup does NOT make a full hard disk backup. It does not back up all the information necessary to making a bootable copy. This has been verified by Microsoft reps many times. So, you could do a restore and find that the restored copy was useless.
As you say, RIS does not make backups, either. It requires a second, almost identical computer. And RIS comes only with software that costs $2,200, if I remember correctly.
The only way to make a backup is to image the drive. That's how we came to be discussing imaging. This can ONLY be done with third-party software, for which, as you say, Microsoft is not responsible. Therefore, Microsoft provides no Microsoft-supported way to make fully functional full hard disk OS backups, as Microsoft readily admits. And THAT is outrageous, destructive, and self-destructive.
NASA did development, but the Physics of Magnetic Resonance was known a long time ago. CAT is Computer Assisted Tomography. The concept is old, but needed to wait until computers were powerful and cheap enough.
Please tell me how to do a full backup using software that comes with the retail Windows XP CD. It's impossible, right? If it is impossible, that's outrageous. People need to be able to make full working copies of their OS and installed programs. That's everyone, not just people who have special software.
If you have a problem with Ghost, you go to Symantec. That breaks Microsoft's chain of responsibility. Therefore, Microsoft does not provide a Microsoft-supported way to do a full hard disk backup. There is a link in the chain that is not supported by Microsoft. And, as many people have said in this story, people have a LOT of problems with Ghost.
With Windows 98, XCopy32.EXE could make a full hard disk backup. Yes, I know it would sometimes re-assign short file names. However, those could be re-named by hand.
How do I get a copy of RIS? Will RIS make a CD backup? If RIS works, why do so many people recommend Ghost, or all the others? I seem to remember reviewing RIS and discovering it would not do what is needed.
There certainly is a problem here, but I don't know what it is. Microsoft's behavior is outrageous. The average user has no way to back up the OS to another partition on the drive or to CD.
What is DR?
There have been numerous people complaining intensely. However, I don't see any error in what I've said. You have talked about RIS, but I understand that is only for people who are connected to a domain. Also, I seem to remember that RIS is not available to everyone. And, there is no provision for making a backup, I understand. For example, there is no way to copy everything to CD.
That's the reason for the Ask Slashdot question, to discover how other people are doing the work.
For anyone who reads this here is a Microsoft article about RIS: Designing RIS Installations. Here's another article: RIS
I've been told many times by Microsoft support personnel that there is no way to make a drive image with Windows XP.
Will RIS work with a peer-to-peer network? Is RIS only for use with a Windows Server?
You are certainly right about the wording. However, Microsoft does NOT support the third party disk imaging tools, in spite of the wording, and those tools often cause problems.
What is the best imaging software to use? That's the question.
NTBackup.exe will definitely not work. That's certain and well-known.
This is a misconception. The System State does NOT include the entire OS. Microsoft technical support representatives have verified this. If you do what you say, you will have a machine with two SIDs. This causes MAJOR problems. Microsoft says there is NO way to recover from that condition.
I've done it successfully a lot. The Slashdot question is about which software you use for drive imaging, and what is your experience with it. EVERYONE is having occasional problems. Those problems seem to stem from the fact that there is NO Microsoft support for the third-party imaging tools.
I've had no problems with multiple syspreps.
"... it doesn't matter WHAT imaging software you use..."
The Ask Slashdot question is what drive imaging software do you use, and what is your experience with it?
Microsoft provides NO support for making drive images. All the software that makes drive images has problems. Part of the problems may be that there is NO support from Microsoft. These are third-party tools, and they are NOT supported.
There are NO misconceptions. The Slashdot article asks about your experience with drive imaging tools.
It's an official fact. Although it is possible with third-party tools, and absolutely necessary, Microsoft does not officially support making functional backups, or clones. We use those tools, but Microsoft provides no support if there are problems.
For everyone who reads this, here is a link to Microsoft's article about RIS: Designing RIS Installations.
This is all offtopic. The Slashdot story asks which third-party tool do you use for drive imaging.
Do you have a link to the "ZD Mag" article? When was it published? Is it this: Backup & Recovery
Sysprep does NOT do imaging. The Slashdot question is: What is your best method of doing imaging?
Sysprep is used, but it does not do cloning. That's what the Slashdot article is about: How do you clone the resulting image? What is your best method for doing this?
Sysprep does NOT deploy anything, even though Microsoft says it does. Sysprep is used with separate hardware or software for making drive images.
Also, in the original article, I did not mention other software for making drive images: Altiris RapiDeploy, and Innovative Software's ImageCast.
Thanks for the link to Sysprep 2.0. I had done a search, and not found anything.
This is Windows 2000 Sysprep Tool 1.1. The latest version is 2.0, apparently. This is not available on the Internet, apparently.
Sysprep only 1) changes the SID, and 2) sometimes helps with IDE drivers. Sysprep does NOT make backups, as some seem to imply.
I haven't used it, but judging from Microsoft's documentation, NewSID from Sysinternals may be better. Microsoft says that SIDs can become unsynchronized so that Sysprep cannot fix them.
This is an old version, that may not work with Windows XP. However, thanks, I didn't know about it.
Windows backup cannot make fully functional copies of the Windows OS drive. This has been verified many times by Microsoft technical support personnel. There is nothing provided with the file system or with most copies of Windows XP (Professional and Home) that can make fully functional copies of the OS drive.
Sysprep does not make backups. It only prepares an image for cloning to an identical machine. Most people don't have Sysprep. Sysprep is NOT supplied with the Home or Professional versions of Windows XP, and is NOT available on the Internet. Sysprep is supplied with support contracts and with the Corporate version of Windows XP.
Nothing Sysprep can do makes a fully functional image of a hard drive. For that you need unsupported third-party tools. That's what the story is about.
Everything in the Slashdot article was verified by Microsoft technical support people.