USMT 5 for migrating Office 2007 Outlook Signatures and .nk2 files

If migrating Office 2007 Outlook signatures and .nk2 files during a Windows migration is critical the latest version of USMT (currently 5) is worth considering.

In a test I did migrating data from an XP 32-bit system with Office 2007 32-bit to a Win7 64-bit system with Office 2010 32-bit using migapp.xml and migdocs.xml, both Outlook 2007 autocomplete (.nk2) files and Outlook signatures were carried forward faithfully. Opening Outlook 2010 for the first time on a target Win7 system the Outlook signature was present from the first email showing that the signature was carried over in its entirety.

If interested, my current strategy in this scenario is to use both migapp.xml and migdocs.xml with the following custom .xml’s outlined below. I also add a script after data restoration to remove 'Public' desktop shortcuts which I don't find particularly valuable since the applications have quite often changed.

USMT 5 still appears to have the issue where the presence of Google Chrome is not detected correctly so bookmarks aren’t carried over. Since it’s only the detection, copying the pertinent section from migapp.xml Google Chrome section without the detection into a custom.xml works well (shown below):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<migration urlid="https://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/googlechrome">
   <component context="UserAndSystem" type="Application">
        <displayName>Google Chrome Bookmarks</displayName>
        <role role="Data">
            <rules context="User">
                <include>
                    <objectSet>
                        <pattern type="File">%CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\* [*]</pattern>
                    </objectSet>
                </include>
                <exclude>
                    <objectSet>
                        <pattern type="File">%CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\*\Cache\* [*]</pattern>
                     </objectSet>
                </exclude>
             </rules>
        </role>
    </component>
</migration>

Based on internet searches I’ve done and talking to others a custom.xml for the .pst extension may still be needed to ensure all .psts including the ones not currently connected to Outlook are migrated. Since this is a tough scenario to test I usually add it to be sure. Attached is the custom .xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<migration urlid="https://www.microsoft.com/migration/1.0/migxmlext/pst">
  <component type="Documents" context="UserAndSystem">
    <displayName>All PST migrated from all fixed drives, regardless of location</displayName>
    <role role="Data">
      <rules>
        <include>
          <objectSet>
            <script>MigXmlHelper.GenerateDrivePatterns ("* [*.pst]", "Fixed")</script>
          </objectSet>
        </include>
      </rules>
    </role>
  </component>
</migration>