The system state includes the following files: the boot files (boot.ini, NDTLDR, NTDetect.com); the registry (including the COM settings); the SYSVOL (group policy and logon scripts); the active directory NTDS.DIT (on domain controllers) and if the certificate service is installed on the server, the certificate store.

As you know these are the critical files you will need to restore the operating system configuration to its previous working state if something goes wrong during your enhancement of the server. Having these backed up will give you a good fall back position and can save your but in case of an emergency.

Too many times I have seen people make major changes to their servers or workstations without taking the simple precaution of backing up the system state. Having good backups from the night before is an adequate precaution, but to restore from the backup media might take time and it may not be the most recent system state. This is time in which the server is down and costing the company money because it is down. Having a recent copy of the system state will save you time, money, and give you a piece of mind when enacting changes on the server.

I like to use the ntbackup that is resident on the Windows 2003 Server OS and the XP workstation OS to backup the system state locally. The job will take about 5 minutes on average. Backing up the system state across a network can greatly increase this time to unacceptable ranges. With an investment of about 5 minutes you have taken an additional step to guarantee a successful rollback.

I have found that some companies even backup the system state during the day to catch any changes between backup jobs that run at night. Again, the system state is backed up locally, but some even transferred the backup file to a designated web share using a third party software such as Robocopy.

For those who are using Window Server 2008 variants or Vista variants, you will not find the ntbackup. The methods you will use will be the command line wbadmin.exe utility. An example of the command to use would be:

  Wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backupTarget:D:

  In this command example, the system state is being backed up to the D: drive.

By taking these simple extra steps you can enhance your recovery success from a bad install. Does your IT company adequately back up your system? A couple of minutes before you make changes to a system can make you a hero in the eyes of the users and clients! Contact your Philadelphia IT Company today.