Use Backup - Windows Image Backup

If you dont have the program I believe it can be downloaded here
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/

Just click on the vhd and you should get options asking what you want to do. You can then click on the Middle option and then you should be able to browse the contents of the Users folder and select what you want to restore. After that click on next and then you should be able to select where you want to restore them.

Andy:  OK I clicked on the file and it does say that I dont have the prgram installed.  I see yo uahve a link to a Paragon dl.  I am a little surprised that the file is not in Windows XP already.  Is this a 3rd party program?  

I will install this program and see what it will ask for next.  

FYI:  I wont be able to do this for a few days though as a I am getting ready to leave for out of town and wont have a computer.

thank you

Rini:
<Are you trying to recover these files to XP?
Yes.

I am not sure now which one I should use:  7zip or the Paragon software dl tool that Andy spoke of.

let me know what you think...

7-zip. I don't know if the paragon tool can open these files, and if it can, it is much larger and a bigger installation than 7-zip, 7-zip is very small.

I've checked it now, and Paragon Backup can handle VHD files. If you need a good backup tool for XP, then I recommend you getting it. But you should still also have 7-zip on every PC. It is a tool that can open and create zip files and similar, like Winzip, only much better.

Ok.  I thought that i used the win xp backup tool but since it was so long ago i have forgotten how i backed it up.

Does it appear that i did not use a windows backup tool?  Maybe vhd files mean i used something outside of windows to backup.

Thank you

VHD files are made by the windows backup tool built into newer versions of Windows, like Windows 7 and probably also Vista. The backup tool of XP makes bck files as far as I know (and it doesn't do an image backup, but rather a file based backup).

OK that makes sense because I think I had Vista when I made the backup (computer since then stolen and now using XP on work computer).  

I dl the 7 zip.
I rt clicked the .VHD file and opened with 7 zip
I am Copying (seems as though I should be extracting but it says "Copying") with the zip tool.
The file it is creating is a .MIG

I was expecting that the actual files would be extracted and not this .MIG file created.  
Do you think I will have to have some other software to open this .MIG file?  (its a long process to unwind this file...only at 20% and has been 20 minutes so far).

thank you

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To me it looks like that is the file you have selected inside the VHD. a mig file is probably what you created with the Windows easy transfer tool. With this tool you can transfer User profiles from one PC to another, but I don't think that the Vista and Windows 7 versions would be compatible with "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" that you have in XP and does a similar thing.

If you want to import this into Windows XP I think you need another version of "USMT" (User State Migration Tool). Check the m$ site for details and downloads.

Maybe it would be a better idea to import the data on a PC running Vista or Windows 7 into new profiles, and then copy the data you need from there to the XP PC.

Or if you have other directories or files within your VHD, look through those and extract what you need.

Rini,

appreciate your insight.  I am getting another pc this week at work and will see what they give me.  

What did you mean by m$ in the following:
<<If you want to import this into Windows XP I think you need another version of "USMT" (User State Migration Tool). Check the m$ site for details and downloads.>>

m$ = Micro$oft

Thank you.  I noticed i misspelled your name...sorry about that.