//TODO (before rebuilding your machine)

I rebuilt my machine earlier in the week (the Remote Installation Service lets me flatten and rebuild to a Windows Vista + Office Enterprise 2007 image in about half an hour). Of course there's still a lot of work to do to install VS, SQL Server etc etc and reconfigure everything back the way I like it. Having separate OS / Data partitions helps a lot. All my data's still there when the OS comes back up.

However there are always some gotchas and I find myself in the embarrassing position of being gotcha'd this time around so I'm capturing a list and will refer to it next time I rebuild...

• Documents Folder
  • I have my Documents folder redirected to my d: (data) drive (d:\Documents) so it takes care of itself
• Outlook and *.psts
  • I locate *.pst files in my Documents folder
  • That way my pst file never gets blatted with the OS (if you leave it in \Users\username\AppData\... remember to copy it)
• Favorites / Music / Videos etc
  • Copy any folders in the \User\username folder that need keeping (I should probably re-direct these like the Documents folder)
• RSS Feeds
  • Export feeds from IE and save the *.opml file in the Documents folder
• Desktop
  • Anything lying around here I copy to Documents
• inetpub\wwwroot
  • Copy anything here that needs saving (I locate all my vroots on my d: drive so again they take care of themselves)
• C:\
  • Do a quick scan around here just to make sure I haven't missed anything
• EFS (Encrypted File System) Files
  • This is where I fell down this time around. Make sure you remember to export your keys or unencrypt your files / folders before the rebuild (and import / re-encrypt again afterwards). I failed to do this and now have a couple of very useless folders... Sigh...

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Comments

• Anonymous
  August 03, 2007
  liked this i got similar technique http://blogs.msdn.com/alikl/archive/2007/05/15/back-up-back-up-back-up.aspx alikl

• Anonymous
  August 04, 2007
  One thing that I've missed in the past is Sql server database files that get stuck up in the Program Files by default.

• Anonymous
  August 04, 2007
  Good point Jason - I've missed them before as well. Since then I've created a Databases folder on my d: drive and just re-attach them after the rebuild. For samples such as Northwind / Pubs etc I used to re-install each time which was time consuming. Mike

• Anonymous
  August 04, 2007
  Hey, don't use EFS anymore. There is a freeware option called TrueCrypt that allows you to have all your encrypted stuff in a file that can be mounted as a drive protected by a password. So you only have to take care of ONE file, it's great.