Copy settings (desktop, taskbar, ie, and firefox) from one LOCAL user to DOMAIN user?

[GCS]

We have gone to SBS2008 and are now running in a domain (was peer to peer).

Naturally to do this I logged in as normal joined a DOMAIN, rebooted, and logged in with the proper domain user account and password.

Is there any way to copy the settings from that local account to the new DOMAIN log in user account?

I normally use a little program called outback plus which backups all this stuff and the ie settings/cache/etc - same for the firefox stuff and then I can restore that wherever I want -- however that only seems to be working on a few of the comps. 3 of them in fact the files will not restore -- no idea why and no google search has uncovered the answer so I am looking for an alternative.

I am stuck big time and need to finish this asap as everyone comes back to work tomorrow at 8:30am

Thanks in advance if you can help.

Greg

 

[RebateMonger]

Did you use the SBS "Connect Computer" Wizard to join the client PC to the Domain? When you do that, it offers to automatically transfer a single Local Profile to a new Domain Profile.

You can also use Regedit to repoint the new Domain User's Profile to an already-present User Profile.

Here's some notes. Credit for the original author is at the bottom. I haven't tried it on Vista or Win7:

=====================

"Giving an old profile to a new User on local computer:

In the local registry under HKCU \ Software \ Microsoft \ WindowsNT \ CurrentVersion \ ProfileList
you will find the information on each user profile that computer "knows" about, which
includes the local profile folder for that user account. (The main subkeys under this
key are named in the form: {S-<random-numbers>}, but not to worry. Just know there is
one subkey for each different account that has ever logged in.)

So first, log in as the new domain user and note the profile folder name Windows is using.
It will usually be something like "C:\Documents and Settings\newuser.domain". (The DOS
variable &#37;USERPROFILE% will tell you, as will looking at My Documents' properties.)

Now, if you log in as administrator (NOT the user), look in the registry key above
for the subkey that corresponds to that user -- you find it simply by looking for the value
in "ProfileImagePath" that you noted above. It should be obvious.

Just change the folder name in ProfileImagePath to the name of the old folder, and then
give the new domain account full NTFS permissions to the old folder tree. Log in as the user
and the local machine now maps your profile to that folder. You can delete the now-defunct
profile that Windows created if you worry about such things.

Renaming or copying profile folders is not to be recommended IMO. While it will generally
work OK, user profiles imbed their own path in various places in the user registry, and this
can give rise to some odd, hard-to-diagnose problems down the line.

Steve Duff, MCSE, MVP
Ergodic Systems, Inc. "

 

[SimMike2]

Did you try Mozbackup for Firefox? Maybe I am missing your point and this is bad advice, but I find Mozbackup works good for restoring Firefox settings.

 

[GCS]

Rebate -- no I did not use the Wizard.

I simply brought the workstations up as usual (ie peer to peer)
Chose Advanced Settings under My Computer
Then went and switched to join the Domain
Then put in the Admin user an Password for SBS2008
Rebooted when prompted
Logged in with the SBS user and password for the workstation

SimMike - I have not tried Mozbackup yet

Greg

 

[RebateMonger]

Remove them from the Domain and rejoin them with the SBS Wizard.

 

[GCS]

I removed one PC and put it back to the workgroup.

My only question is do I go to the http: // connect from the local user group or after I rejoin the domain -- I would think after I rejoin as otherwise I cannot connect to the SBS machine.

Greg

 

[RebateMonger]

Youtube: Connecting a workstation to SBS 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sJRAdrSKX4

That'll properly join the workstation to the Domain, will put the workstation in the correct OU, will automatically transfer a local profile to the domain profile on the PC.

 

[GCS]

Yep it worked on one PC. Only bad part was I had to setup a new user on SBS completely different than the old one as the user account on the workstation already existed for the old login so it refused to let me choose to take the settings from the local user account since it saw one that matched already (annoying but I worked around it). Restoring (importing) all the old emails now.

Now to do this same process on the other 5 machines. It's gonna be a long night!

Thanks

Greg