How to Exclude Directories from the Single Instance Store Groveler (272149)

SUMMARY

When the Remote Installation Service (RIS) is installed on your computer system, the Single Instance Store (SIS) feature is also installed on the volume that holds the RIS images. SIS reduces the amount of disk space required by these images by storing only a single amount of the data in a folder on the volume named SIS Common Store. This name is also referred to as the common store.

When the RIS images are installed onto a specific volume, the SIS feature works (or grovels) the entire volume. If you have data stored in another directory on the volume in which your RIS images reside, any duplicate files found in those directories are "candidates" to become SIS links.

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Even though it is not harmful to have other data stored on a volume that has SIS enabled, you may not want that data to be scanned by the SIS Groveler for the following reasons:

Programs that access the data may not understand or may have issues with Microsoft Windows 2000 NT file system (NTFS) reparse points.
Backup programs that back up the data on the volume may not understand how to handle SIS links or reparse points.

NOTE: If you remove RIS from a system, you do not remove SIS. Any data on the volume placed in the common store by the SIS Groveler remains in the common store and is accessible.

To have the SIS Groveler exclude certain directories, use either of the following appropriate methods:

To Exclude a Directory on All Volumes

To exclude a directory on all volumes in a system that runs SIS, add an entry under the following registry key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Groveler\ExcludedPaths

The value can have any name. For example, to exclude the Folder1 directory on any volume in the system, you can add the following entry to the registry:

Value Name : Folder1 directory
Data Type : REG_SZ
String : \Folder1

When you are finished, start and stop the SIS Groveler service by doing the following steps:

Click Start and click Run.
In the command prompt, type:
net stop groveler & net start groveler
Press Enter.

To Exclude a Directory on a Single Volume

To exclude a directory on a single SIS volume, just add a entry to the Grovel.ini file located in the SIS Common Store folder using Microsoft Windows Notepad. For example, to add the Folder2 directory onto a specific SIS enabled volume, add the following information to the Grovel.ini file located in the SIS Common Store folder:

[Excluded Paths]
Folder2 directory = \Folder3

Save the file, and then stop and start the Groveler service. The entry to the left of the equal (=) sign can have any name or value you want. Add one entry for each folder that you want to have excluded on that volume.