Unlike the Configuration Image Facility, which saves and restores your entire computer environment, the DeskMan/2 Object Manager provides the flexibility to save and recreate selected individual objects, and to transport these objects to other machines and to other versions of OS/2.
When you shut down normally, the Workplace Shell saves your desktop in files that it later uses to recreate your desktop when you re-boot. These files can only be used on the source computer. The Object Manager does not use the same files that the Workplace Shell uses. Instead, it creates and maintains its own files in which it stores all the information necessary to recreate the objects on your desktop.
By using its own files, the Object Manager is able to recreate objects that may have been damaged or destroyed, or that were not saved by the Workplace Shell. This includes objects that you may have destroyed, but about which you later changed your mind. Additionally, Object Manager files can be transported and used on other computers.
Because the Object Manager saves objects and other information in its own special set of data files, you can save and recreate different desktops by creating and using more than one set of data files. These files are described below:
Object and system information will not be stored in these files until you use the appropriate Object Manager function. Once saved, the information will remain in the files until you specifically remove it. This means that, if you do not remove an object from the archive, you can recreate it years later (if you still have the archive).