Re: Capturing a Cygwin instance from another PC

[ASSI <Stromeko@nexgo.de>]

Jose Isaias Cabrera via Cygwin writes:
> I have a new Win11 PC, and I wanted to capture the same Cygwin setup
> that I have in another Win10 PC. I copied the C:\cygwin64 folder from
> the Win10 pc to the Win11 pc,

This doesn't really work unless both machines are domain joined and all
SID for the installation are identical on both machines plus you'd need
to ensure that symlinks and stuff make it to the new machine unharmed.
It's actually easier to re-install from scratch and don't worry about
all those things.

>  then I downloaded a fresh
> setup-x86_64.exe from cygwin.com to the win11 PC. I ran it and chose
> "Install from Local Directory" and only one shortcut for "Cygwin64
> Terminal" was created on the desktop. No Cygwin nor Cygwin-X folders
> were created on the Start menu. The original cygwin from the Win10 PC
> had X installed also.
>
> Any idea how to get this done automatically? I know I can go and
> create folders manually, etc., but it kind of a pain. Any help would
> be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Do a base install on the new machine, then copy over the
/etc/setup/installed.db from the old machine.  Then reset all the
version/release numbers in that file to zero:

sed -re 's/^(.+) (\1)-[0-9].+(\.bz2)/\1 \1-0-0\3/' -i.bak /etc/setup/installed.db

Close the Cygwin shell and run setup again and it will re-install
everything you've had installed on your old machine, thus ensuring that
all postinstall scripts will execute in the correct order.

If you've changed any system-wide configuration files like
/etc/nsswitch.conf or /etc/fstab, compare those to the new files just
installed and decide which version to keep.  Take note if you've used
the "desc" schema for user mapping and re-apply those to the SAM for
local accounts.  If you've had an SSH server running on the old machine
you will of course need to create new host keys and install the
services, again that's easier to do from scratch IMHO.

Once the system is set up to your satisfaction, copy any home
directories you want to keep on the new machine.


Regards,
Achim.
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