Moving Local User to Domain

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jdetmold

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I am About to deploy a Windows Server 2008 R2 domain in a business that currently only has local users on all computers.

I have limited experience with Windows Server as I have spent most of my time on Linux... I have however setup several Server 2003 domains but always with all new workstations so this has never come up before (just to make sure i knew what i was doing i have setup a virtual WS2008R2 box and several clients on my vmserver).

There are about 10 systems that i need to setup but all systems have many documents, email, and applications already installed in a local profile.

The question is what is the best way to move a users profile from local to domain?

I am not setting up roaming profiles.
the users systems are running a mix of XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Thanks for the help!

Jeff
 
You can use tools such as linked above...
Or you can use the profile copying tools built into Windows (system properties...user accounts)
Or you can copy the profile manually youself (after joined domain and the new user profile is created...reboot into safe mode w/networking support as domain Admin....go into docs 'n settings and copy the contents of old local profile into the contents of the new domain profile)
Or you can do what I usually do....as I do not like copying over ALL the junk from the old local profile (that can sometimes bring along old problems...too much old registry crap, I like being able to start with a fresh new lean and clean profile)...I just cherry pick what I want to copy over...Docs, Desktop, Favorites, and e-mail..such as PST and NK2 file. This can be done from the server actually after the PC does a reboot and nobody logs in...don't have to be sitting at the local PC.
 
I've done it many times by going through the network to \\workstationname\c$
Now you're working through explorer just like sitting at the local PC...drill into docs 'n settings and copy what you want.
 
I have been trying the profile copying tool in windows and it works well....
but it seems to be corrupting my outlook (2010) data file. i have not tried it on a system with office 2007 yet.
after copying the profile them changing the permissions and logging back in as the domain user and starting outlook it says it cant access the data file at the old profile path then closes right away. so i log back in as local administrator and rename the old profile path adding .bak. go back to domain user and start outlook and it says cant find data file but now gives me the option to brows to the file, i select the file and that seems to work i can now see all emails etc.

but when i click send receive it still says outlook data file cannot be accessed.

any ideas? if possible I would like to move all my local users to domain users without recreating all their outlook accounts from scratch
 
You can modify the profile folder path in the registry.

Add the machine to the domain
Then log in as the domain user.
Log out, log in as local admin, go to HKLM>software>microsoft>windows NT>profile list

Find the sid that has the profile image path as "C:\docs and settings\username.domain" name, and change it to just "c:\docs and settings\username"

Log back in as the domain user and they will have their complete profile
 
Eickst said:
You can modify the profile folder path in the registry.

Add the machine to the domain
Then log in as the domain user.
Log out, log in as local admin, go to HKLM>software>microsoft>windows NT>profile list

Find the sid that has the profile image path as "C:\docs and settings\username.domain" name, and change it to just "c:\docs and settings\username"

Log back in as the domain user and they will have their complete profile
Click to expand...

sounds easy enough
do u know off hand if this has stayed more or less the same for xp through 7?

Thanks!
 
jdetmold said:
sounds easy enough
do u know off hand if this has stayed more or less the same for xp through 7?

Thanks!
Click to expand...


It's consistent XP to 7.

Also, I should point out that if the local user name is different than the domain user name, you won't see a username.domain in the profile image path, but just find the new one that has the new domain user and change that sid's profile path to the local one.
 
Eickst said:
You can modify the profile folder path in the registry.

Add the machine to the domain
Then log in as the domain user.
Log out, log in as local admin, go to HKLM>software>microsoft>windows NT>profile list

Find the sid that has the profile image path as "C:\docs and settings\username.domain" name, and change it to just "c:\docs and settings\username"

Log back in as the domain user and they will have their complete profile
Click to expand...

I do this as well. I also add the new user explicitly to the permissions of the old profile as well.
 
k1pp3r said:
I tried this out on a project last weekend, worked great! Much easier than fastwiz or the manual copy crap
Click to expand...

just downloaded the trial of this and it makes me re-setup all my outlook2010 email after migrating for some reason, it does not even see the old profile although the data file is still there

not sure why
 
just tested it with outlook 2007 worked great! outlook 2010 not so much but at least i only have 2 or 3 pc with 2010 so i guess i'll just have to manually rebuild their data files from a backup after migrating
 
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