Just tried this program.
What are the main advantages over just manually transferring the data? I see some advantages already, but what are the big ones? I think maybe they will become more apparent after more uses.
The first advantage is that you do not have to dig into the file system to find most of your customer needs you to recover, so, you save time. Time is money, that's a well known fact. About the other big advantages, for example, that's quite comfortable to not have to set back the Outlook settings (except the mail account password). I guess you will find out some more depending on your needs as soon as you will perform your first restore job.
To me everything before was straight forward except all the stuff in the AppData folder where some program settings stayed. I always just dumped this folder, but I think it always carried over some junk that wasn't needed like adding stuff in the start menu shortcuts what wouldn't be actually be installed later on like the OEM's bloatware. I always manually backed up keys to Office and other programs, backed up themes including wallpaper, reinstalled licensed software including Office. Installing the browsers always carried over the bookmarks. It was tedious though, so I figured I try this program.
It looks like you are answering your own question there. That program helps you pick up what really matters and leave the junk behind.
Used it on a crappy HP Stream as first test subject that has onboard eMMC storage so obviously a hard drive can't be taken out. First thing I noticed is that I couldn't do the backup to a network path or my backup server. Instead I tried an external drive which can be more time consuming as it's going to have to be transferred again. Next, I noticed errors in regulars\ Windows mode. Then, I tried it in safe mode, and it worked fine without errors. Maybe PE mode would be best. Normally, I take the hard drive out.
Wow, that's a rude first test drive with that machine! That said, it is possible to use network targets to store backup. Just be sure that the administrator account you are using to run the program is allowed to access the network share, then, use full UNC path in the backup storage field like "\\SERVER\Share\The_rest_of_the_path_to_backup_folder". Personally, I use a network share on my Synology NAS that does not need authentication so credentials are never an issue.
You said that you got errors when running in regular Windows mode. Perhaps this was due to this machine's shape. There was a reason why it was on your bench right? It's a good thing that safe mode did the trick, otherwise PE mode is probably your best bet when you deal whith this kind of crappy machine : no unneeded stuff is running and slowing it down.
What's the purpose of the Public folder? Only ever backed up what was in the Public Desktop folder due to some shortcuts I sometimes don't see in the users' profiles as I never saw anything meaningful in the other folders.
This folder contains any item that is not tied to the user's profile like fonts, public desktop, documents, music, videos, installed software list, printers list, licenses keys, etc...
Everything selected in the additional files and folder tab is saved to this folder as well.
