Securing user data when reinstalling or replacing PCs

I'm primary responsible in my new job for Setting up PCs for our users, it be reinstalls or replacements.
In that process I spend a lot of time
#1 securing that there no stray documents and user data on the local drive,
#2 noting what extra software is installed
#3 and noting what printers are used.

I'm wondering if there is some scripts or tools capable of helping with this and perhaps also collecting other user settings?

There are tools, but they tend to be licensed per device where the software is used, so this can get very expensive. If you can catalog software that is used in the org then you could research where settings are stored (usually either in the local user registry, system registry, user profile and ProgramData). With that information you could build a powershell script to gather all that data in a centralized location such as a network share). Create a restore to reverse the process.

neemobeer said:

There are tools, but they tend to be licensed per device where the software is used, so this can get very expensive. If you can catalog software that is used in the org then you could research where settings are stored (usually either in the local user registry, system registry, user profile and ProgramData). With that information you could build a powershell script to gather all that data in a centralized location such as a network share). Create a restore to reverse the process.

Click to expand...

Luckily over at Spicewrks I was redirected to USMTGUI by Ehlertech. It is basically a GUI for MS USMT (no until yesterday I hadn't heard of USMT before either).
I got a 2 week trial and it looks promissing. It basically makes a copy (of major parts) of the user profile and replicates it over to the new PC.
Lots of other stuff like browser favorites, shortcuts etc come over as well

Not really expensive with ~300 PCs to go through. Their Corporate licecense is $350.

If you want to upgrade the disk to a larger one or just reinstall Windows, you can reinstall without deleting the previous Windows installation. When upgrading to a larger disk, clone the old disk on the new first. Then boot with Windows 11 USB and proceed. Since there is no easy way to select a specific partition in the new 24H2/25H2 Setup interface, just select to switch to the old Setup version when you see the option bottom left. At the disks screen, click on the Windows partition (usually the larger one) and proceed. You will see a warning that an old Windows installation is detected and will be copied to Windows.old folder. That's exactly what we want. Proceed with the installation. After the installation you can install drivers and activate. Then you can copy any user files from C:\Windows.old\Users\user_folder to the respective folders of the new installation. This has the advantage that all user data, including app data, are available in case you forgot to backup something, and also many programs might retain their configuration and other settings if you copy all relevant folders from the old Program Files and ProgramData and user folder before reinstalling. For example if you copy all folders from Firefox before installing Firefox it will think it is already installed and offer to upgrade. Just say yes to install it and you keep all bookmarks, themes and other user settings