Joining new domain causes users to lose their profile!

[Dave]

I recently started work for a new client whose 2000 Domain
Controller's hard drive had crashed. I installed 2 new hard drives,
reinstalled Windows 2000, created a new domain and setup disk
mirroring. Now I am faced with an annoying problem. When I join the XP
workstations to the new domain they get new profiles. As you know,
this means they no longer have their emails, saved passwords, mapped
drives, documents, etc.. I realize that these items are in the old
profiles folder but importing them to the new profile has proven to be
a VERY large pain!! I have tried renaming the new profile folder and
giving the new name to the old profile, but when the user logs on to
the domain it creates a third profile and were back to ground zero.
Does anyone know of a way to copy the local user profile from the old
domain into the new domain profile? I have tried everything.

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

Hi Dave

Sorry to be facetious, but you haven't tried everything, otherwise you would
have found a solution!

Of course, you have created a totally new domain and your newly-created
users are totally different people as far as Windows is concerned.

Under My Computer | Properties | Advanced | User Profiles | Settings, you'll
find a "copy to" button, which will allow you to copy a profile and,
importantly, give another user permissions to access it.

Profile permissions (which are part of the user's ntuser.dat registry hive)
are distinct from NTFS file permissions.

Anyway, log the new user in on each workstation and make a note of the
profile path ("echo %userprofile%" is a useful command). Then, reboot the
machine and log in as an administrator of the local box. Use the "copy to"
button above to copy the old profile over the top of the new profile,
remembering to changed the permissions.

This should take over the user's old settings.

Oh, and you do know that it's a good idea to have at least two domain
controllers, don't you? Let me rephrase that -- it's a really dumb idea to
only have one domain controller. I'm sure you know that, but hopefully your
client now knows that as well.

Regards

Oli

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

(e-mail address removed) (Dave) said

I recently started work for a new client whose 2000 Domain
Controller's hard drive had crashed. I installed 2 new hard drives,
reinstalled Windows 2000, created a new domain and setup disk
mirroring. Now I am faced with an annoying problem. When I join the XP
workstations to the new domain they get new profiles. As you know,
this means they no longer have their emails, saved passwords, mapped
drives, documents, etc.. I realize that these items are in the old
profiles folder but importing them to the new profile has proven to be
a VERY large pain!! I have tried renaming the new profile folder and
giving the new name to the old profile, but when the user logs on to
the domain it creates a third profile and were back to ground zero.
Does anyone know of a way to copy the local user profile from the old
domain into the new domain profile? I have tried everything.

If the new domain is in native mode you could use the Active Directory
Migration Tool (ADMT) which is available from
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/tools/admt/default.asp

Otherwise you would look at the User State Migration Tool which is available
at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/new/usmt-o.asp