Fab's AutoBackup 7 Pro - a must have tool for techs

[fabs]

New couple of questions / issues. I'm working on a Win 8.1 machine that is several kinds of messed up with the user profile stuff. A little background before getting into the Fab's specific stuff.

There are two userids:

- William

- William.workgroup

William seems to be corrupted in some way. If I go to C\Users\William instead of seeing the usual several folders, there is only AppData and My Documents folders. My Documents contains just 1 folder and a couple of documents. AppData only has a Local directory, and underneath that is just a Microsoft directory with a few more levels under it. Very strange. (Yes, I have turned on viewing hidden and system files). William is the user name used to logon to Windows.

William.worgroup has the expected plethora of folders and files at C:\Users\William.workgroup. Lots of documents under My Documents. There is no option to logon using William.Workgroup

When I run a backup in Fab's I get a message about some sort of registry error for William and literally nothing is copied for William

William.workgroup has lots of data copied, but in the backup under William.workgroup | archive | Documents, there is a @Recovered directory. This is not in the source hard drive, so where did this come from? (I did check the User Manual)

My goal here is to delete both William and William.workgroup and create a new user with the combined data from both userids.

Mahalo,

Harry Z

Yeah, William profile seems to be corrupted for while. For some reason, Windows could not use C:\Users\William profile to store his files. When this happens, it often creates another profile with user name in it, a dot and domain name as suffix. In this case, then PC is not in a domain but in a workgroup called "workgroup". This is why Windows created "C:\Users\William.workgroup" and has stored user data here. First profile can be safely ignored as it's just garbage. When users logs in as William, his profile is William.workgroup.

The other question is well answered by @fincoder

 

[Haole Boy]

It's mentioned in this thread:
https://www.technibble.com/forums/t...have-tool-for-techs.78308/page-29#post-659730

Yeah, William profile seems to be corrupted for while. For some reason, Windows could not use C:\Users\William profile to store his files. When this happens, it often creates another profile with user name in it, a dot and domain name as suffix. In this case, then PC is not in a domain but in a workgroup called "workgroup". This is why Windows created "C:\Users\William.workgroup" and has stored user data here. First profile can be safely ignored as it's just garbage. When users logs in as William, his profile is William.workgroup.

The other question is well answered by @fincoder

Mahalo for the quick replies! Much appreciated. Especially explaining the .Workgroup username. That had me puzzled, and if you search on Workgroup you get a gazillion hits but nothing about this userid situation.

As an FYI... the @Recovered folders & files were originally located in C\Users\William.workgroup\Contacts No idea how they got in there, and the customer's main software that he uses is going to issue lots of error messages as it can't find it's files, and this customer can't handle stuff like this. The next few weeks are going to be difficult until he learns how to resolve the errors.

Again, Mahalo for the quick responses,

Harry Z

 

[Porthos]

I will give it a test on the next nuke and pave.

Driver restore works as advertised. Slow but that is just Windows installing the drivers.

 

[JoelM]

Is it possible to set the default setting in Fab's to NOT have the drivers option selected by default? I find that most of the time I do not want it.
If I want it for the occasional time I can then select it. I am often forgetting to unselect it.

 

[fabs]

Is it possible to set the default setting in Fab's to NOT have the drivers option selected by default? I find that most of the time I do not want it.
If I want it for the occasional time I can then select it. I am often forgetting to unselect it.

That will be the case for next release. This option will be unchecked by default and it will remember its last state.

 

[timeshifter]

Upgrading client to new computer. Used Fab's to backup data on old computer. Restored on new computer, running Windows 10 1909. Later I updated to Windows 10 2004. The Desktop lost the restored wallpaper and most of the icons that Fab's had restored under Windows 10 1909. So apparently the 2004 update did something.

Rather than trying to figure it all out I just re-restored from Fab's again and told it to overwrite everything.

Any reason this is not OK?

What did the 2004 update do?

 

[fabs]

It looks like upgrade process just did not put these back like it's supposed to do.

 

[timeshifter]

I'm trying to build a PE disk for Fab's. Following this guide https://forums.fpnet.fr/viewtopic.php?id=446

To get past Step 7 where you select the Windows 10 source files I had to extract an install.wim file from the install.esd. That seemed to resolve that. I'm using a 64 bit Windows 10 64 bit 1909 ISO I built using the Media Creation Tool a while back, the same ISO I've used on my iODD for lots of installs.

Anyway, later in the process, after I press Play it seems to build everything OK but I never find an ISO file in E:\WIN10XPE.

Not sure what I'm missing.

 

[timeshifter]

I think I got it working...

When I would click the "Create ISO" button I'd get an error about boot.wim not being in ISO\sources folder. So I copied the boot.wim file from E:\SourceWin10x64\sources to E:\Win10XPE\ISO\sources. Note that I had to create the sources directory under ISO. I was able to build an ISO. Now whether it boots or not is another adventure.

 

[NJW]

I'm trying to build a PE disk for Fab's.

The problem with this approach is that it's a pain to have to rebuild the .iso for a new version of Fab's AB (or any of the Nirsoft helper apps) – plus, you can't save changes to settings.

I did the same in my early days with Fab's, but nowadays I PXE boot to WinPE and use the external utilities from a USB stick – better workflow for me.

 

[GTP]

but nowadays I PXE boot to WinPE and use the external utilities from a USB stick – better workflow for me.

This ^^
Its a pain trying to build and modify .iso images so I just run my PE from my IODD. I can then run any portable tools or apps from the Windblows partition of the IODD.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I usually run Fabs from a USB flash drive containing my favorite tools, which gets any Fabs updates when it's executed. If the patient system won't run Windows, I boot a Gandalf PE on it then run Fabs that's on the USB flash drive. Almost the same as what @NJW and @Barcelona do.

 

[Diggs]

If the patient system won't run Windows, I boot a Gandalf PE on it then run Fabs

Hmmm.... Never thought about it that way. If the patient won't run Windows I pull the drive and dock it. I may change my ways. Thanks @Larry Sabo

 

[timeshifter]

Now whether it boots or not is another adventure.

It doesn't really boot correctly. It looks like it's running my regular Windows 10 1909 ISO, like a regular install, and I tell it to install etc then it complains about missing driver. I've got a ways to go to get a working WinPE install.

 

[timeshifter]

Its a pain trying to build and modify .iso images so I just run my PE from my IODD. I can then run any portable tools or apps from the Windblows partition of the IODD.

Yeah, I'm putting the ISO I make on my iODD anyway. I did build a plain vanilla PE ISO using Microsoft tools. I only got a command window. When I navigated to the Fabs folder on the volume of the iODD it wouldn't run, something about it not being compatible with this version of Windows.

 

[timeshifter]

I'd still like to get this Win10XPE disk working. Had a little more luck downloading the ISO that the program linked to. It went through the entire process cleanly. When I clicked Create ISO I get this message again:

 

[timeshifter]

Seems obvious now, but I needed to simply click "create boot.wim and ISO" button.

 

[timeshifter]

PE Build successful. BUT, no Fabs

 

[fabs]

I'm trying to build a PE disk for Fab's. Following this guide https://forums.fpnet.fr/viewtopic.php?id=446

To get past Step 7 where you select the Windows 10 source files I had to extract an install.wim file from the install.esd. That seemed to resolve that. I'm using a 64 bit Windows 10 64 bit 1909 ISO I built using the Media Creation Tool a while back, the same ISO I've used on my iODD for lots of installs.

Anyway, later in the process, after I press Play it seems to build everything OK but I never find an ISO file in E:\WIN10XPE.

Not sure what I'm missing.

Windows Media Creation tool ISO usually does not give good results with the PE Builder. That's why I advise to use Windows ISO Downloader tool for that. All needed WIM files are in ISOs from this tool (and these ISOs are straight from Microsoft website).

Now, I think that "Create boot.wim and ISO" button only makes a basic PE and ignores any additional custom app. Just follow the tutorial and use the big "Play" (blue triangle) button on the upper-right corner of the builder.
Also, it may be a much better choice to build a bootable USB so you would not have to build a full PE again with each Fab's or Nirsoft update

 

[Larry Sabo]

I get "Processing Public - Imaging devices" displayed forever and there is no activity on the drives, even after back-up completed. In fact, this screen (below) displays during the back-up for quite a long time before the job finishes. Clicking Exit displays backup job cancelled by user (after the screenshot was taken) but the program does not end. I need to force it to close.

Also, it would be good if the option to back up drivers was on one of the screens at the beginning of the process.