Make the System State your friend

Best Practice (Litmus Test)

Professionals: Take two minutes to backup the System State before installing a new application.

Amateurs: Just install the application or hotfix without taking precautions.

by Chris Porosky

Think before you install a new application, driver or hotfix, what you should be thinking of is best practice for a fall back position if the server crashes.

The System State is your friend and protector.  Which ever backup software you use, put a tick in the System State check box.  These are the components that the System State controls:

• Active Directory - NTDS.DIT and Logs
• Boot Files - Including Boot.ini
• Certificate Server
• Registry
• SysVol - Group Policies and Logon Scripts

How do you get to the System State?  Start (menu), Run,  NTBackup; alternatively, All Programs (Menu), Accessories, System Tools, Backup.

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Last Known Good by Chris Porosky

Chris has a second part to this Litmus test, once you have taken a backup of the System State you will almost certainly need a reboot.

Professionals: Wait to see if there are any error messages before they logon after installing new drivers.

Amateurs: Logon quickly and so lose the chance of using the Last Known Good.

Since NT 3.51 days, the Windows Registry, keeps a spare configuration.  So if you make a terrible configuration mistake, you can go back by using the Last Known Good, however once you logon the boot is deemed to be good and you over write the previous Last Known Good. 

Armed with knowledge that the Last Known Good exists, wait a minute or two to check that there no messages 'One or more drivers failed to start'.  If you press F8 you can select Last Known Good and so save yourself a problem.

Whilst XP has the System Restore Point feature, this is not available on Server 2003, so master the System State and Last Known Good.

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