Windows System State Analyzer from Microsoft

OS: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008
Link: http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/ar...ion-to-the-windows-system-state-analyzer.aspx

 

I saw this a week ago or so. Wonder how it stacks up to other similar programs.

Im thinking a nice use for this may be as an uninstaller type program. Make your initial copy, install a program, dont like said program, uninstall, and then roll back the registry and other settings. I hope it works that way.

 

I believe it doesn't have uninstallation functionality.

 

Now Im saying create a before program installation snap shot. And an after wards snap shot. That should highlight the changes made during installation. To remove all you have to do is use the programs own uninstaller and then compare snapshots to find anything the uninstaller had missed.

 

I installed this program and kicked off a scan. The scan churned away for quite a long while, and then failed on a "serious problem encountered" message. Thereafter, the machine was unstable. The scan immediately showed 10% progress and never changed prior to failure. My conclusion: not ready for prime time. If you need a free analyzer of this sort, you might try InstallWatch.

edit: Oh, BTW, once a scan is underway, CANCEL does nothing,

 

It takes about 30 minutes or more to complete the first scan. First scan took up about 400,000Mbs for me which is rather huge for only having a 250Gb HD and its not very full. Immediately after the scan finished my system was unstable and very slow. I uninstalled right after.

 

I believe you can do all this probably with more detail with ESET SysInspector.

 

Does anyone know any other software that compares the system state differences between two different computers? One that I have tried, and which still works, at least on XP, is the seemingly little-known tool Microsoft FileImg.

 

Latest version of Folder-Snap supports Vista, but it looks like their site is dead.