Convert local accounts to domain accounts?

I used a free command-line utility the in the past to do this (can't remember if it was from MS or not), but I can't seem to find it now. I can't remember exactly how it worked. It just did something like re-map the local profile to the domain account.

Regardless, I'm upgrading a workgroup to a domain and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a painless way to allow users to retain their profiles. TIA.

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Comments

WilliamK99

Not sure of a 3rd party tool, this is what I did, when I made the migration quite a few years ago.

After joining the PC to the domain I had the user log on using their domain account.

I then logged on as Local Admin.

Right clicked the computer and selected Properties.

Then on the Advanced tab I clicked the Settings button under User Profiles. Selected the user's old local profile and click the Copy To button, then select the directory under Documents and Settings which was created when the user logged on with their new domain profile.

Most of the programs should still be shown although I had a few specific programs I had problems with...

If there is a 3rd party solution to this, I would love to find out what it is.

dynamik

Yea, that's what I'd have to fall back on. I'm not really keen on doing that for a lot of users though (There's really not that many; I could have probably been done by now had I not spent hours researching this. It's just bugging me).

There are 3rd party tools you can buy for this type of thing, but I used some free command-line tool. This was about four years ago, and I'm not recalling WTF I used. Everything I'm finding either says to do what you said or use USMT. Bummer

Hyper-Me

You are looking for moveuser.exe

Its in the Server 2003 Resource Kit download.

I've been using it lately and have seen a mildly alarming failure rate with it, though. So be sure to back up the users data before trying to run the tool.

If you are doing this to Vista machines, there is now a WMI object to use for this and moveuser does not support Vista.

blargoe

I think it's a regedit with some renaming. I don't remember how to do it though, we had a division of a company I used to work for that spoiled their users and did "whatever it is that lets them keep their profiles" on all their computers manually when we forced them to join our domain.

blargoe

I forgot to mention, the cheap way, if acceptable, is to copy their profile settings to Default User... but then every user from there on out gets that person's profile. You'd want to make sure to show all hidden files and folders, system files, etc, then copy their profile using the User Profiles section of the System control panel applet (for XP...not sure about Vista), and give permission to Everyone.

If they're using Outlook, I've found in the past that paths to PST files in the Outlook profile that gets copied with the Windows profile do not change and have to be updated manually too.

dynamik

Hyper-Me = pimp (don't take it personally Blargoe, your pimp status has already been established). That was indeed what I was looking for.

The backup goes without saying, but hopefully this takes a little of the burden off of me. Outlook/PSTs do indeed break, and there always seems to be a few other weird problems to work out. Oh well, thanks again everyone

blargoe

I remembered incorrectly regarding the thing I posted about anyway. The registry thing was for renaming the user profile folder only.

desertmouse

dynamik wrote: »

I used a free command-line utility the in the past to do this (can't remember if it was from MS or not), but I can't seem to find it now. I can't remember exactly how it worked. It just did something like re-map the local profile to the domain account.

Regardless, I'm upgrading a workgroup to a domain and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a painless way to allow users to retain their profiles. TIA.

I've used ForensiT Domain Migration with great success. I'll have to try the moveuser next time.