How to migrate OES clusters with user shares file/folder permissions to Windows?

Migrating the actual data should be pretty easy; if nothing else, configure a workstation to map a drive to both systems and then ROBOCOPY or TERACOPY is your friend.  The difficulty is in the user directories (Windows' Active Directory vs. OES' NDS).  You need tool that knows that 'fred' in OES is 'fred' in AD, presuming that the user naming convention didn't change during the migration.  perhaps you can configure the OES to temporarily be a domain member server in the new Windows environment, use ROBOCOPY to copy permissions.

A google search turned up this: https://help.migraven.com/en/von-novell-auf-microsoft/ but I did not investigate it too closely, so don't know if it will do what you need.

Thank you Bud Durland that's  brilliant!
Will certainly try that and see how it goes.    

Thank you so much Scott Kunau for an excellent well documented overview.  The  main reason we moving over  from OES to windows is becoz of our new director who feels this is the way to go especially as we are moving to Office 365. You may mention  your company contacts here if you comfortable, should there be a need I can get in touch.   

The only reason O365 would drive a Windows install is to have an AD for O365 to read to get user names, e-mail, and so forth.  The smart money stands up a separate AD for that, to avoid having your entire network become vulnerable when a user's e-mail account is successfully hacked.

That said, there are tools thaty can help document user access on the OES system.  You didn't mention how many users we're talking about, but you might consider creating the empty directly tree on the Windows box(es), create the windows users & group, apply security on the Windows folders, then copy the files.

Great advice Bud.    We have about 750 employees and as per the new decision we are in the process of moving our email to O365 first. The challenge is moving the OES clusters to windows seamlessly.  Do you undertake such projects? 

I'm not sure how to mention my company following EE guidelines so I'll just do so. We are Innovative Global Technology Group (IGTG), a nationwide consulting company and maintain a Gold-level partnership of many, many years with Micro Focus and Novell (formerly). Contact info (Ohio phone) is on our website at www.igtg.net/contact

I work on these kind of migration projects regularly (email, directory, file systems) eventhough it isn't fun to see companies leave the best filesystem and directory out there these days. I understand both sides, unlike many "migration" companies because I've played in both OS and email systems for decades. I try to make these projects almost invisible to end users. If you can't find what is needed to contact me, post back here.

I forgot to ask what email system are you moving from?

Appreciate your guidance and information Scott Kunau. We are moving from Groupwise to O365. 

Thanks...if you need help or guidance on the GroupWise to O-365 migration I've done several of them silently and successfully because I've been around GroupWise since it became a product in 1994 and Exchange since it started as a product in 1996. Office 365 is just Exchange Server 2019 in Microsoft's network somewhere in the world. Perhaps we can discuss your migration plans and utilities?