Lenovo System Migration Asst vs XP/Vista User Migration

[WilsonF]

Does anyone have any comparison of the Lenovo applet with the XP/Vista User State Migration Tools? How are they different? Which is better and why?

[mabbas]

Hello,

I have been reviewing this for a while.

What I have noticed is that if you are doing a deskside migration, you need to have a Windows EZ transfer cable. I think those are available from Belkin (USB to USB) and those cost about $39 list. SMA supports a regular Ethernet cable (not even crossover) if both machines have gigabit.

The only other thing I could see is that SMA is still scriptable, not sure if USMT really is, and will USMT work for multiple users on a shared PC?

Just my thouhgts.
John.

[ThinkFanatic]

SMA is WAY more powerful than the MS tool.

You get much more granular control over what you are grabbing, there is 3rd party application setting migration. It will migrate network shares, printers and file/folder permissions.

A couple of other things, with SMA, you can have it write to a file copy that to USB/network, and then migrate that way, not just a real-time transfer over ethernet.

SMA can do a capture based on file type, so it can capture .doc files from anywhere on your system and you can remap them on apply so that they are all in your Documents folder.

It is also scriptable, but for most end-users that doesn't matter.