The System State

What is the System State?

The System State consists of the core files and registry settings that are used by the Windows operating system.

The System State includes the following information:

• The boot files
• The system registry settings
• The system protected files (SPF). These are the critical files needed to run Windows. For example KERNEL32.DLL and NTDLL.DLL.
• The Active Directory files
• The shared system volume (SYSVOL)
• The COM+ class registration database

Windows Server 2008: You can back up the System State with the console command wbadmin start systemstatebackup. (Algin recommends instead you use wbadmin start backup -allCritical. See below.)

Windows Server 2000/2003: You can back up the System State with NTBACKUP. NTBACKUP backs up the System State separate from the other files on your computer. Look for the backup item “System State” in the NTBACKUP information pane.

System State is not sufficient for moving AD

The System State backup is generally not sufficient to recover the AD to a new computer. Algin does not recommend that you create a System State for use in disaster recovery. Algin recommends instead that you back up the entire C: disk using the -allcritical option.

UMove can restore AD on the same computer using only the System State. However, the System State alone is generally not sufficient to move AD to a different computer. Additional data files are required to move AD to a different computer.

For example, the System State does not include the DNS, DHCP, WINS, IIS, or Certificate Authority files in \Windows\system32\*, nor does it include several essential private encryption keys. To successfully move AD to a different computer requires a backup of the critical drives (-allCritical), usually C:.

If you let UMove create the .BKF file for you (recommended), it will back up the minimal set of required files that are sufficient to move AD to a different computer. For a list of the minimal required files see the Layout of the Staging Folder.

Faster Backup: Reducing the size of the System State

UMove is interested only in the Active Directory files. So it instructs NTBACKUP to exclude the system protected files (SPF) to save time and disk space. See Reducing the Size of the Backup for more information.