From a workgroup to a domain: transfer settings and desktop environment?

So a site I'm responsible for needs to move to a domain now from a workgroup. I've already got the domain in place, and now the machines (all Windows XP Pro of course) need to be joined to the domain. I'd like to make the process painless for the users and transfer all their application settings, desktop environment, etc. since when they log into the domain on their workstations, they'll be logged in as a "new user" on the machine.

I haven't tried anything yet, but since there are not that many machines, I figured sitting down and running the File and Settings Transfer wizard might work. I don't have the need to automate the process, so USMT seems like overkill.

Is this being transferred to a Small Business Server? If so than it is pretty easy.

If not then you can use the following method:



1) Logon in as WORKGROUP\USERID

a) Check to see what directory gets created under C:\Documents and Settings.
- most likely will be USERID.WORKGROUP or USERID.WORKGROUP.000
**** This is the path you will CHANGE in the registry in a later step

b) Check old DOMAIN directory
– most likely will be C:\Documents and Settings\USERID
**** This is the path you will USE in the registry in a later step



2) Logout & Login as Local Administrator or Domain Admin



3) Add WORKGROUP\USERID to Local Administrators Group



4) Check number of profiles under User Profiles tool
Windows 2000 – Right Mouse Click on My Computer – User Profiles
Windows XP – Right Mouse Click on My Computer – Advanced - User Profiles – Settings
Should see two profiles - DOMAIN\USERID and WORKGROUP\USERID



5) Open Registry - REGEDIT

a) Go to this key
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

b) Find DOMAIN SID – Look for the path in Step 1b to under ProfileImagePath key

c) Find WORKGROUP SID - Look for the path in Step 1a to under ProfileImagePath key

d) Highlight ProfileImagePath key in right-hand window for WORKGROUP SID
Double-click and change path to match old DOMAIN path noted about in Step 1b.
- will most likely be %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\USERID

- This path is case sensitive



e) Find DOMAIN SID
Highlight SID in left-hand window and Delete



6) Logout & Login as WORKGROUP\USERID



7) Check number of profiles under User Profiles tool
Should see only one profile now - WORKGROUP\USERID

Sadly its not SBS. I'll give that a shot.

Cliffs for post above:

Add the computer to the domain and login as designated user to be transferred.

Then go to regedit and edit the registry pointing the profile path to the new profile that was created by logging in to the domain user.

How many users are you talking about? I would still use a tool to do this so that you can ensure that settings are pulled uniformly across each machine. Why create more work for yourself?

QHalo said:

How many users are you talking about? I would still use a tool to do this so that you can ensure that settings are pulled uniformly across each machine. Why create more work for yourself?

Click to expand...

How about suggesting some of those tools you speak of? I am sure the OP would not mind.

Oh, I see. Kind of a little registry magic to make the machine use the old MACHINENAME\ACCOUNT profile when logged in as the domain user. Neat trick. Thanks.

QHalo said:

How many users are you talking about? I would still use a tool to do this so that you can ensure that settings are pulled uniformly across each machine. Why create more work for yourself?

Click to expand...

Less than 20 users.

LoStMaTt said:

How about suggesting some of those tools you speak of? I am sure the OP would not mind.

Click to expand...

Yes, please.

LoStMaTt said:

How about suggesting some of those tools you speak of? I am sure the OP would not mind.

Click to expand...

Calm down killer I'm getting to it.

We used to use this before we bought the Altiris PC Transplant solution. This worked very well for us.

Forensit - http://www.forensit.com/

Here is the Microsoft way to do it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722032.aspx

If your going to use the reg hack method then you ned to give the new suerid(domain acount) Full Controll of the profile as well as ownership of the files. You can give ownership from a server 2003 machine. On the ownership tab slect other users and groups and give the user ownership. A user must be the owner of their profile and have NTFS permssions to it. There is a gpo/local policy setting to tell xp to ignore profile ownership if you wish to go that route as well.

you could also just use fastwiz on the workgroup profile and then fastwiz the crap back to the domain user profile. works fairly well, I would highly recommend running ccleaner on the computers before fastwiz though.

I only take what I need from the old users profile. Once I've joined the domain and created a new user profile, I go back into the users old local profile..and snag the minimum of what I need...usually just My Docs, Desktop, Favorites, and perhaps e-mail such as the Outlook PST or Outlook Express .DBX files.

In the past, quite a few times, I have found if the user has a "problem" with their old profile (which...lets face it...if it's a profile that has been around a while, there could be some quirkiness)....copying over the entire profile brings along all that CRAP to the new profile..including the issues.

Copying over the bare essentials lets you start with a cleaner slate. I'm not worried so much about some secretary losing her desktop wallpaper of her dumb poodle wearing pink bows.