[SEO-TECH] Does anyone have any cloning or copying software they would recommend.

Tue Apr 20 12:03:19 EDT 2021

If I understand correctly, it sounds like you want to clone applications
(for instance, Microsoft Office, Google Chrome, or your antivirus software)
from an existing computer to a new one. If this is the case and assuming
these are Windows computers, you may be out of luck. Windows applications
tend to be messy and reliant upon the Windows Registry, and mostly don't
copy well from one computer to another. For the most part, very few (and
only very small/tidy) Windows programs can be successfully copied in this
manner. You will have much better luck in actually running through each
program's installation process, if you want a working program on the
destination computer.

Once upon a time, when Novell Netware was around, Novell created a product
called ZENworks. Within that suite, there was a tool that you *could* actually
use to copy an *installed* program, and then deploy that program along with
all of its configuration to any number of workstations. I used this to
great effect to deploy programs such as Microsoft Office, web browsers, and
pretty much any other program I needed to deploy to more than a few
computers. But to do well, it was a meticulous process involving taking a
"before" snapshot (picture) of the entirety of the file system and the
entirety of the Windows registry. Then installing the desired program and
making any setting customizations you wanted. Then taking an "after"
snapshot of the file system and registry. Everything that had changed
between the "before" and "after" snapshots was mostly the program and
settings. But since Windows is a living, breathing operating system there
are constant registry and file system changes that are not actually part of
the program you installed. So the snapshot needed to be manually edited to
remove all of the unrelated (as best as could be determined) files and
registry changes that had been swept up. As tedious as it could be, it
worked really well and I sorely missed that capability when I stopped using
Novell's eDirectory in favor of Microsoft's Active Directory. For a few
years, I looked for a similar tool suite that I could use with AD, but
didn't find anything quite like it. You can deploy .msi files via AD and
you can make some customizations. You can also deploy specific registry
entries and/or files. But you need to know exactly what to configure and
how to configure it in advance. You can't take a "before" and "after"
picture, do literally anything, sweep up everything that is changed, clean
it up and deploy it.

As implied with the ZENworks snapshot process I described, Windows programs
are messy and tend to spew their files all over the place in Windows. They
also make registry changes...again often all over the registry. So without
precise knowledge of exactly what is relevant to a specific program or
without a "before" and "after" snapshot of an installed program, it would
be exceedingly difficult for any 3rd party tool to know what to clone/copy
from one computer to another. Bottom line:  I don't think you'll find a way
to successfully copy installed applications from one computer to another.
But I'd love to be wrong here, so I welcome anyone to throw an egg
on my face! (Uh....figuratively.)

One of the things I do to make application deployment a little easier and
faster is to leverage Chocolatey <https://chocolatey.org/> whenever I can.
If you're familiar with linux package managers, this is akin to that but
for Windows. With Chocolatey installed, installing a program like Google
Chrome is a matter of typing "choco install googlechrome" into a PowerShell
console. Adobe Reader becomes "choco install adobereader". The program
automatically downloads and installs onto the computer with no need to
browse to the program's website, download, and manually run through its
unique installation process. It turns a 30-minute job to install a set of
identical applications onto a computer into a 3 minute job. It can also
easily be scripted to make the process even smoother/faster/consistent.

Paired with Chocolatey, I leverage Active Directory GPOs and GPPs to tweak
config files and registry settings as required. There are always some
manual things that need to be done/installed on each workstation, but the
net result is hours saved per computer.

With that many computers, though, and if they're all to be configured
identically, I might consider configuring just one to be exactly the way
you want it and then clone it to the others. (Clonezilla
<https://clonezilla.org/> is my free/open source go-to for hard drive
cloning.)

FWIW, HTH, and good luck!
Chad

______________________________
*My personal listserv policy:*

*I may not respond off-list to topical replies sent only/directly to me.*
*Libraries have a wonderfully amazing reputation for openness and sharing,
a concept I support and encourage. Your thoughts are useful and valuable. I
beg you to share them publicly so that other libraries can benefit from
them too and perhaps participate in an open conversation...which can't
occur off-list.*

*Chad Neeper*
Senior Systems Engineer

*Level 9 Networks*
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

*Full IT/Computer consulting services -- Specialized in public libraries*

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 10:07 AM Jennifer Bates <minervalibraryit at gmail.com>
wrote:

> We are replacing all of our public and staff machines this summer. Instead
> of manually loading all of the software to each one I would like to try to
> clone/copy it instead.  Do you recommend any software that has that
> capability?  I don't need to move the operating system, only the programs.
>   Of course we are looking for the most cost effective method.  We will be
> replacing thirty machines in total.
>
> --
>
> *Jennifer Bates*
>
> *Minerva Public Library*
>
> *Adult Services*
> *677 Lynnwood Dr*
> *Minerva OH 44657*
> *330-868-4101*
> _______________________________________________
> SEO-TECH mailing list
> SEO-TECH at lists.oplin.org
> http://lists.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/seo-tech
>
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