Topic: New Domain + New Profile = angry employees

So our company switched domains, which is fine, but, when you do this it creates a new profile. So the first time the user logs into their computer it's like they have a new computer. Settings are changed, icons are moved around, MS Outlook isn't there, blah blah blah.

Now, I work with a bunch of sales reps and they don't *want* to understand that things are still there, they just look different.

The corporate IT guy did a registry thing that pretty much moved the old profile to the new one and things just worked again. Does anyone know how to do this?

I remember he said something about loading the "NTUSER.DAT" file and then changed some permissions... Sorry that is about all I can remember.

At any rate, if someone has a good way of joining the computers to the new domain and then getting their old profile back, it would be of GREAT help as I am about to smack some people around.

Thanks in advance!

Later,

C:\

One "decent way" is to recover old profile folders.
Application settings are contained in the app settings profile subfolder, then there is the desktop,
the favorites, and that's about it: should be enough to get everything back except NT settings
(input language for instance).

However, those settings often are standard inside a company, so in most of my past assignments,
moving the three main profile subfolders was enough.

Other than that, moving the NTUSER.DAT file can occur only if the user is not logged in and does not have
any active process.

Then, about changing privileges, my guess is that the owner should be the new
domain user, simply - but I could be wrong on that one.

My 2 cents.

Quick check at the NTusers.dat on my pc and they have the following users
with full control:
- Administrators
- System
- the user himself

So definitely, copying the ntuser.dat and setting full control on it for the new domain user,
+ copy/pasting the three key folders I mentionned should completely "migrate" the profile.

Let me know how it works.

I did find this. This is for 2K and most of the laptops here are XP Pro but it should work about the same.

Pretty much just grant full access of the old profile to the new domain user, then set the profile in the registry of the new profile to the old profile.
Doesn't seem that hard. Might have to test on a spare machine before doing it though.

Later,

C:\