Fixed: ScanState.Exe is not a valid Win32 application on Windows Xp Sp3 x86

I'm working on a project now to forklift upgrade a couple of thousand desktops from Windows XP to Windows 7.  We're using the User State Migration Toolkit (USMT) to grab the user profiles from the old machines and apply them to the new machines.

Problem: When I run the USMT scanstate.exe executable on my shiny new Windows XP SP3 Lab machine, I get the following error

Scanstate.exe is not a valid Win32 application.
That's not good.

The procedure I used to get this copy of the USMT is to download the
Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 8.1
from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39982 run it, and select only the USMT components.  This creates two folders inside
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\User State Migration Tool  one is for x86, one is for x64. 

My Xp machine is x86 (32-bit), and it doesn't work. 

The solution is to remove the Windows 8.1 ADK and pull down the Windows 8 ADK from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=30652.  It installs exactly the same way as the 8.0 one, but these binaries work.
You'll find the functioning files in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\User State Migration Tool\x86




I asked about this and was told that the Win8.1 ADK does not support XP.  That explains it.

Let's file that under "Information that would have been relevant yesterday."

Comments

Unknown said…
This is great! Thank you so much!
I was wondering why my scanstate was not working.
Glad to help, Paul. I really think this should be in big letters on the documentation of this tool, but it's not. :/ Best of luck.
Unknown said…
Dude you rock! Thanks i was having the same issue!
Samir FARHAT said…
Really strange, i'm under this issue since 4 hours, and finally, it sounds that the only solution is to Replace ADK 8.1 by ADK 8. Obvious since Microsoft report that USMT 5.0 is supported on Windows XP (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824913.aspx)
Thanks
@Samir FARHAT -- Yes, that's right. The USMT tools from the Windows 8 ADK are required to savestate data from Windows XP.

Glad to help!