Backing Up Data

Cornell Uses Laplink App To Help Mop Up Infected Machines

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/12/10

Cornell University in Ithaca, NY expects to expand usage of a software utility from Laplink Software that moves programs, files, and settings from one PC to another. The university's Athletics and Physical Education division has been using PCmover since early 2007, according to Ricky Stewart, computer services director. Currently, the athletics organization runs 278 copies of the program, but Stewart said he expects deployment to broaden in the foreseeable future.

"It is a huge time saver," Stewart said. "I can migrate multiple computers faster than I could do one computer without PCmover."

Previously, Stewart would sit with a user to identify all of their files and e-mails and copy them to an external hard drive. Then he'd install applications onto the new computer, reload their files and e-mail, and configure the settings for e-mail. Then he'd hold onto the old computer or hard drive for at least a month, "because there always seemed to be something that did not get copied."

Stewart said that since working with PCmover, he's never had a user come back to him looking for missing files.

Lately, PCmover has been helpful in restoring drives hit by viruses and malware. After Stewart cleans up the computer, he said, he runs PCmover to create an image on an external hard drive. "Then I do a low-level format of the infected hard drive and install the operating system," he explained. Currently, that's Windows 7.0. After that, he does updates, installs anti-virus and malware protection software, then installs and runs PCmover on the clean hard drive.

Cornell's central IT group runs network scans to search for strange behavior on the network suggesting a compromised system. "I have not had a system that was compromised or that came up bad after using the [new] PCmover process," Steward added. "Before, I had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall from backup or from the ground up--and some files always got lost in the process. Not with PCmover!"