For newer servers I don’t really use templates anymore, but if you are deploying a lot of 2003 Windows servers in vSphere, then they can save you some time. Back in the days of vCenter 2.5 you just uploaded those sysprep files to the relevant folder in,
[box]C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataVmwareVmware Virtual Centersysprep[/box]
But that location no longer exists (since Server 2008).
If I’m migrating client data, I use Xcopy a lot, especially if I want to preserve the permissions. One of the questions I usually ask is “Do any of your users have file names that are very long, i.e. longer than 256 characters?” Because if you are moving a lot of data and it’s been running for a few hours, then suddenly fails saying ‘Insufficient Memory‘, then that’s probably what the problem is.
Solution
1. At the point of failure, you will have successfully moved some data, so you want a solution that just moves the remaining data, Robocopy will do that for you.
Note: For Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, and Windows Vista/7/8, you will already have Robocopy installed, for older clients you will need to install the 2003 Resource Kit.
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Syntax
robocopy "source" "destination" "options"
robocopy S: D:Shared /MIR /SECFIX /SEC
Note:Robocopy by default will retry 1000000 times, and wait 30 seconds each time (if it has a problem). You might want to add /R:3 /W:1 as switches to stop that.
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/MIR – Mirror the two locations, this will copy the difference IN BOTH DIRECTIONS! (Simply use /E if you don’t want this).
/SECFIX – Checks the Permissions on ALL FILES as it goes through (to make sure)
/SEC – Copies the data with its security ACL’s intact.
Use Robocopy to copy only newer files/folders
Thankfully this is the default behaviour, simply run the same command again.
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