The System State

What is the System State?

When NTBACKUP backs up your computer, in addition to your files and application settings, it backs up 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

When NTBACKUP backs up your computer, it backs up the System State separate from the other information on your computer.

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.

Windows 2000: Active Directory is hidden

NTBACKUP on Windows 2000 hides the Active Directory files. NTBACKUP does not allow you to read or view the Active Directory files (for example, NTDS.DIT). There is no way to copy the Active Directory files to an alternate location such as a staging folder, for example.

To work around this problem, UMove will open the .BKF file and retrieve the hidden Active Directory files without using NTBACKUP.

UMove is the only utility with that can do this. No other utility can recover the AD files from a Windows 2000 backup.