Windows XP USMT

[macklesc]

My dad wanted me to reinstall XP on his machine because it was bogged down with tons of spyware and cluttered with so much garbage he just wanted a fresh start. I used the USMT wizard to gather all the files and settings so that way they (both my parents and my 3 younger siblings) won't lose all their documents and all. The process took roughly 5 hours to complete and resulted in roughly 10 DAT files totaling to around 21+ GB.

That in itself didn't seem right.. but I went with it anyway.

I had never used the USMT before because my machines were never XP (I use Linux on the computers at my house) so I figured it would just copy whatever was in their respective My Documents, Desktop and other personalized folders.. boy was I wrong.

It copied messed up system files (which is what prompted my dad to ask me to redo his machine) and other random crap that isn't even really necessary. I discovered this AFTER I used the USMT to restore the backup files. Windows kept complaining with its System File Protection messages, so I just rolled back to the install restore point.

My problem is that I want to dig in the .DAT files that the USMT creates so I can extract just their document folders (they can redo their personal settings themselves..), but am unable to find a suitable reader/decompressor and the USMT doesn't offer any kind of options to aid in this that I can tell.

Can anyone provide some insight? Perhaps are there some programs that can read, interpret and decompress the contents of the files the USMT created, or is there an option (options?) in the USMT itself to aid in this?

Thanks for your time.

[Sixpac_XP]

Shed some light would you please.

What is USMT?

[macklesc]

USMT = User Settings Migration Tool.

Alternatively called the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.

[rpertusio]

I'll start off by saying that I know nothing about the USMT, but I would suggest renaming one of the .dat files to .cab. CAB compression is a standard type of compression that the Windows OS uses, and it is possible that these 'dat' files are simply renamed 'cab' files.

Also, you may find the 'expand.exe' command-line program of use. It should be installed by default with XP.

I wish I had better suggestions, but maybe one of them will work.

- rp

[bailey]

why don't you just run spybot and adaware and save your self a lot of work and trouble

[rpertusio]

Alright, I did some more digging. The utility you need is called the "Fastconv Extraction tool". However, the bad part is, Microsoft doesn't have it available anymore!

You *may* be able to call them and have them send it to you. I have thoroughly searched the internet for this utility, and came up empty. (There are other utilities by the same name, but are not the tool you want.)

FYI, I found a description of the Fastconv tool on google's newsgroups, which tells you how to use it, if you are able to obtain the tool.
Fastconv Extraction tool

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Furthermore, I did try renaming the file to ".cab" and ".zip", and I had no success.

Good luck!
- rp

Tutorial: http://aumha.org/win5/a/fast.php