Offline USMT 5 and Excluding Local Accounts

Excluding local accounts is a common scenario when migrating profiles and data using USMT. This is a simple task when using online USMT 5 by adding the parameter /ue:%computername%\* . It is a much different situation using offline USMT. Offline USMT is initiated while in WinPE so the context of the current computer is not available. As a result local accounts are evaluated by SID and therefore the parameter /ue:%computername%\* does not accomplish the goal during the offline capture. This parameter doesn't work during the restore phase either since the SID cannot be translated to the computername even if the computer is named the same. The options in this scenario are limited. If the more common local accounts are known they can be excluded by defining them with successive exclude commands during the capture /ue:*\localaccount1 /ue:*\localaccount2. If using this method ensure that the restore parameter /lac is included to prevent the restore failing if a local account is encountered since there is a real possibility some local accounts may not be excluded. The /lac parameter used by itself will restore local accounts, but leave them disabled.

When using offline USMT 5 keep in mind the differences in data migrated versus online USMT that are documented in the following TechNet article:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825238.aspx

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 24, 2017
    Hello - Is there any other option to exclude now in USMT 5 ?