rsync to 2000/NT servers?

[Craig Barratt]

> Watch out for pagefile.sys (i think!)... it's won't copy. (let me know about 
> any other's)

Most important files won't copy.  The registry files are locked and
can't be read by rsync/cygin (nor are they served by smb).

Similarly, the outlook.pst file used by Outlook (which contains all
the email, attachments, calendar and address book info of an outlook
user) is locked whenever outlook is open (which is most of the time).
Exchange databases, SQL databases will be locked too.  Any file open
by a windows app is likely locked too.

So you can get 99% of the files, but the 1% you miss are the most
critical.

> Now, can you think of a way to sync the win 2000 OS? (the WHOLE flippin' 
> system) so that if it were to go down one could restore the full installation
> (bootstraps, bootloader, ect!!?) by means of the rsync'ed "backup".
> please? thank you. ;-)

I wish this was possible, but I don't know how to do this.
Commercial products use an OFM (open file manager) to allow
locked files to be accessed.  Products are sold by companies
like St. Bernard or Columbia Data Products.  Apparently Veritas and
Legato bundle this product with their commercial backup products.

See for example

    http://www.stbernard.com/products/docs/ofm_whitepaperV8.pdf

What we need is an open source OFM that is compatible with rsync.
Then bare-metal WinXX recovery would be possible.

Craig