New SBS 2003 and group/user policy

[ckittell]

I am playing with sbs2003. I currently have a Win2k workstation that belongs to a workgroup. When I configure the w.s. to attach to the domain on the sbs2003, my desktop and program settings (outlook, word) need to be reconfigured.
Question: how do i keep current desktop settings for my pc's and join the domain?

Tx

[WHLT]

When you change from a workgroup to a domain, W2K automatically creates a new user. All of the customization is in the users' private directory.

This is in a path that looks like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\

Under each user there will be a range of folders that contain the user-specific settings. For example, there will be such folders as: My Documents; Desktop; Cookies; Favourites; Start Menu; User Data; Etc.

Also, be aware that there are quite a few hidden folders in here that also contain critical information about the user and his/her preferences. The most important two of these are: Application Data & Local Settings.

I have had good luck with simply finding the appropriate folders under the old Identity and copying them to the new identity. It is easiest to do this if you attach the machine to the new domain to create the new user, then log in as a Local Administrator and copy the required folders/files from the old user ID to the appropriate place in the new user ID. You will have to 'play' a bit, as some things do not copy over quite the way you might want. (An example of this...copying the items from the Desktop folder of the old user to the desktop folder of the new user will result in the two users having identical items on their desktops, but you will have to arrange them the way you want again for the new user. Positioning does not copy over.)

Some programs, however, actually make changes to the system registry under the individual users' identity. To get these can be done in either of two ways...

1) Log in as the old user , go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive and export it to a file. Then log in as the new user and import that file into your registry. Once that is done, do a search for the old user's name and change it in the registry (if that is necessary...if it is the same person, do not bother with this).

2) Simply re-install any software package that does not work for the new user.

Hope this helps.

[kidvelvet]

Another thing to keep in mind is that the user CANNOT be logged into the domain on another machine while you copy over files, or the NTUSER.DAT file (and a few others) will not copy over. I had to learn that one the hard way.
_________________
kidvelvet
www.kidvelvet.net

Yes, your problem is the most important. Just like everybody else's.