Easily migrate multiple user states?

[Eric Law]

Hello!

I'm doing a multiple 2000 -> XP computer upgrade in a small office where people move around a lot and use multiple computers.
This is in a domain environment but roaming profiles are not used.

I've been researching FAST and USMT, they both seem oriented toward migrating files/settings for a single user from one
machine to another.

What I'm looking for is a utility that will scan a (Win2K) workstation, gather files/settings for *all* the users on that
machine, save them somewhere (in this case to a server), and allow me to restore them to the replacement workstation which
will be running XP.

Am I dreaming, or is there something out there that can do that? I suppose I could get creative with a backup/restore
program, but was hoping for something a bit more automated.

Thanks!

Eric Law
Fore Engineering
Wilmington, MA

 

[Guest]

If the computers are identical, I would create one setup with all required
useraccounts, then log each user on once, and off again, to create the
profile.

I would then disk-image this setup to the other computers.

Transferring the users should then be a fairly straightforward matter of
copying over "Documents and Settings" with a WinPE or Linux bootCD, and then
changing its permissions (including subfolders) to allow access to all users.
(You must do this because of the change of SID)

This does leave you with no security between local accounts, but hey, if you
want to put all those permissions back...

 

[Guest]

....... actually wth domain accounts you may not need to reset the
permissions, as the SIDs will be those of the domain controller, so will not
change. Perhaps try and see first anyway.

 

[Eric Law]

That's a great idea, but unfortunately the machines aren't identical. And sometimes people use different machines for
different purposes, so they'll have things set up one way on "machine A" and a different way on "machine B".

I have to say it's surprising to me that MS doesn't have any kind of tool for this - I would think situations like this would
be fairly common.

Eric