migration assistant in a jamf / mdm world

[jwojda]

I've never been a fan of using migration assistant for anything, not for any particular reason, I just have it in my head that any kind of migration from the old system is going to bring with it any problems to the new system. Not to mention, I see the migration assistant as more of a tool for the non-enterprise managed devices (parents/grandparents/home users).

The process I usually use is signing in as the user on the new machine and target booting the old one and just copying the individual folders over to the new profile (Documents/Downloads/Desktop/etc) and reinstalling and reconfiguring the settings again. It's more time consuming but has never failed me.

Am I wrong in this thought process? The one or two times I've tried migration assistant to a Jamf'd machine messed up the jamf connection and had to reblasted. But that could have been my fault. Curious what the community's take is on Migration Assistant is.

[sdagley]

@jwojda For a Mac that's using Automated Device Enrollment I would recommend only using Migration Assistant to bring over a user's home directory. For users that need this I have an alternate PreStage Enrollment that doesn't disable the Transfer Information screen. As you've discovered, trying to use Migration Assistant to bring over the complete configuration from an old Mac doesn't work.

[jwojda]

@sdagley so theoretically, just transferring applications and the users home folder should work to bring everything over?

[mschroder]

When our users use the Migration Assistant they are always surprised that the Self-Service does not work. They have the Self-Service app, they might even have a node cert from the JSS, but o course the JSS does not know the device it just ignores it. Our documentation covers this, but who reads documentation? It would be nice if the Migration Assistant would ignore all files that are related to jamf. No framework, no Self-Service app -> no confusion. Would be too easy ;)

[sdagley]

Application success will vary depending on if the app was simply a drag & drop type install, or installation came across with some system wide configuration info being written.