Copying XP user accounts on a domain.

[JeffreyLebowski]

OK, I need some help to spped things up here at work.
We have about 50 new PC for users.
We need to copy their profiles(non-roaming) from their old PC's to the new PC's. We do this all thew time but it requires us to log in to the new PC once with the users account, then log out and then we can copy their profile info into the newly created profile on their new computer.

I am hoping to find a way to do this but skip having to login with the users account to create the "blank" profile to copy into.
We've tried just copying the profile to the new pc, but when we do this, when the user logs in it creates a USERNAME.DOMAIN profile folder.

Is there a tool that can do this or a step we are missing.?

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

 

[daveshel]

I don't believe there is an easy way to manage this.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: daveshel
I don't believe there is an easy way to manage this.

That's what we've been thinking but, M$ in all their wisdom has to have thought about corporations updating hardware. Hell we get new PC's every 2-3 years and laptops every 2 years.

 

[stash]

Check out the user state migration tool (USMT): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/usermigr.mspx

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: STaSh
Check out the user state migration tool (USMT): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/usermigr.mspx

Tried it, when doing it I get an error and the log says, that the USMT only works for Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0

 

[stash]

Make sure you are using the latest version: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta...-4aac-a305-5ed88f5d4caa&DisplayLang=en

USMT will most definitely work for XP To XP migrations. It is a critical component of Microsoft's business desktop deployment (BDD) architecture, as well as the zero touch deployment scenarios using OSD with SMS. With zero touch, you push out a WIM image using SMS to a machine. As part of the SMS job, USMT runs to capture the user state to a server. Then the image is paved onto the box, and the user state is copied back.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Thanks STaSH, but we found a way to do it that doesn't require any software to be installed.
To move a profile from one PC to another without having to login as the user on the new one
Step 1:
Go into the registry and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ WINDOWS NT \ CURRENT VERSION \ PROFILELIST
Step 2:
Find the entry in PROFILELIST that is for the user you want to move. Export this registry setting.
Step 3:
Import the registry setting from step 2 to the new PC registry.
Step 4:
Copy the profile to the new PC in Document and Settings folder.
When the user logs in their profile works. We've tried it on several machines so far and all is good.