Copying windows profiles
Copying windows profiles
Can someone post the steps to copy an old local profile to a new profile.
I have users that were used to log to the domain and create a profile, now those workstations were disjoined and rejoined to the new domain.
So now when they logon to the new domain it will create a new profile for them, but they still need to see their old desktop, documents, favorites, applications, etc... just as if they were still in the old domain.
For test purposes I tried to copy the old profile to the new on, but when I go to the Advanced tab /user profile I see some profiles that show unknown and some if you highlight them, it won't give you the option to copy them...
in the c:\documents and settings I can see the (folders)profiles there.
but I am not sure on how to copy the old profile(folder) to the new one, is renaming the old folder with the new name and the new one with a different name will work?
thanks
Can someone post the steps to copy an old local profile to a new profile.
I have users that were used to log to the domain and create a profile, now those workstations were disjoined and rejoined to the new domain.
So now when they logon to the new domain it will create a new profile for them, but they still need to see their old desktop, documents, favorites, applications, etc... just as if they were still in the old domain.
For test purposes I tried to copy the old profile to the new on, but when I go to the Advanced tab /user profile I see some profiles that show unknown and some if you highlight them, it won't give you the option to copy them...
in the c:\documents and settings I can see the (folders)profiles there.
but I am not sure on how to copy the old profile(folder) to the new one, is renaming the old folder with the new name and the new one with a different name will work?
thanks
1) Logon as the user to create a new profile;
2) Logoff user;
3) Logon as administrator;
4) Copy contents of the old profile in c:\documents and settings\users\<username> to the new profile (probably someting like c:\documents and settings\users\<username>.
2) Logoff user;
3) Logon as administrator;
4) Copy contents of the old profile in c:\documents and settings\users\<username> to the new profile (probably someting like c:\documents and settings\users\<username>.
That is exactly what i put except that with your method you will need to copy all the files instead of just re-naming the profile to the correct name
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Sorry for the typo's. The comment should read:
I think that you may be introuble with this one. Once the computer is disjoined from the domain all of the user profiles are orphaned because the security identifier is no longer valid. You can view and take ownership of their "old" user folder in documents and settings but as far as the profile I think you are out of luck.
mds-cons,
Step 2 should be a restart and not log off. The new profile will be locked until the restart.
I think that you may be introuble with this one. Once the computer is disjoined from the domain all of the user profiles are orphaned because the security identifier is no longer valid. You can view and take ownership of their "old" user folder in documents and settings but as far as the profile I think you are out of luck.
mds-cons,
Step 2 should be a restart and not log off. The new profile will be locked until the restart.
ASKER
SO what 's the solution.......I am sure users they need what is in their old profiles.
That's what I was thinking.
After rejoining the workstation to the new domain
1-Logon to the new domain with a domain user account (for instance John) so it will create a new profile (John)
2-log off
3-Log on as the domain admin
4-rename the John profile to something xvxvxvxv
5-rename the old profile to John
6-Restart or logoff and logback on with John and see if his old profile shows up.
svenesky: mentionned something about the SID, I don't know if the profile has a SID or at least beased on the SID.
Worst case scenario guys, you may need to tell me just in which folder of the profile a user might have saved things that they will need in the new profile.
I can say the user might need the following folders from the profile:
Desktop, Application Data,Favorites,My Documents,Start Menu.
if I just copy these folder to the new profile is enough? would they overwrite the new folders?
I can't seem to find a solution for this....
That's what I was thinking.
After rejoining the workstation to the new domain
1-Logon to the new domain with a domain user account (for instance John) so it will create a new profile (John)
2-log off
3-Log on as the domain admin
4-rename the John profile to something xvxvxvxv
5-rename the old profile to John
6-Restart or logoff and logback on with John and see if his old profile shows up.
svenesky: mentionned something about the SID, I don't know if the profile has a SID or at least beased on the SID.
Worst case scenario guys, you may need to tell me just in which folder of the profile a user might have saved things that they will need in the new profile.
I can say the user might need the following folders from the profile:
Desktop, Application Data,Favorites,My Documents,Start Menu.
if I just copy these folder to the new profile is enough? would they overwrite the new folders?
I can't seem to find a solution for this....
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jskfan -- you are correct on the reboot vs. log-off. I also forgot to mention that you need to be sure you are viewing hidden files so everything gets copied.
The method I described (but with reboot to be sure files are all unlocked) does work with disjoined / rejoined systems.
The method I described (but with reboot to be sure files are all unlocked) does work with disjoined / rejoined systems.
ASKER
what are the profile folders that might a user need in the new profile??
Your list is pretty good. You also will probably want Local Settings and might want Templates. Problem you have if you don't copy the whole thing is you are going to loose the user specific registry settings (so, for example, you would have to set up Outlook again).
Really the easiest is to copy the whole thing (or as murphyke suggested rename it...but I prefer the copy approach because it preserves the original profile "just in case"). I've even seen this done successfully when moving from one computer to another.
I quit using the profile section of System Properties quite some time ago because it often seemed flakey to me. You can clean up old profiles by simply deleting the folder in Documents and Settings.
Really the easiest is to copy the whole thing (or as murphyke suggested rename it...but I prefer the copy approach because it preserves the original profile "just in case"). I've even seen this done successfully when moving from one computer to another.
I quit using the profile section of System Properties quite some time ago because it often seemed flakey to me. You can clean up old profiles by simply deleting the folder in Documents and Settings.
ASKER
I believe the most important about profiles is the NTuser.DAT that might might have soem references to the registery, If I rename the newly created profile which is John to XYZ and the old profile to John would this cause an issue.
for test purposes I tried to copy the old profile over the new one but I realized that it doesn't overwrite it.
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I tried Rename which worked better in a test machine.
Go to Documents and Settings
See what the new profile is being called (sometimes it puts .domain on the end of the username)
Re-name this to something else.
re-name the old profile you want exactly to what the new one is called.
I have done this many times and it has always worked fine.
If it does not let you re-name the folders you will need to restart the computer.