Hi, I am converting our environment from a workgroup into a domain. One of the main reasons for this is we have around 50 mixed Vista and XP workstations and the previous guy set all the users up as local admins on their workstations, which drives me crazy from a security standpoint. I would like to keep their current desktop profiles, since several of them wouldn't know how to find IE if there wasn't a shortcut to it, and I have changed the registry settings to point the domain account back to their old local profile. I then gave the domain account Full Control in the security settings of the old local profile folder. The problem is since they have had admin accounts their profiles are set up that way when they log in with their non admin domain account lots of things are broken on their desktops. There is no background, the Start menu is missing items, ect... and there may be other issues that I havent even discovered yet. Is there a way to allow them to keep their profiles when logged in as a standard domain user?

Hello,Have you looked in GPO folder redirection options?Isaac Oben MCITP:EA, MCSE

I would like to be able to have all the users data on the servers so it could be backed up, but this is not feasible with the hardware I have to work with. And would that even help with the switch from admin to standard user?

Hello,Make sure the user profiles are saved as .dat file that way users can make changes that will not change when user logs out. Also, when you migrated from workgroup to domain did change users logon names? Option might be to recreate all the profiles..copy old profiles to new domain profiles Create a new user profile on the domain computer Log on as the Administrator or as a user with administrator credentials. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click User Accounts. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Advanced. In the left pane, click the Users folder. On the Action menu, click New User. Enter the appropriate user information, and then click Create. Copy files to the new user profile Log on as a user other than the user whose profile you are copying files to or from. In Windows Explorer, click Tools, click Folder Options, click the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders, click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box, and then click OK. Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\Old_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and Old_Username is the name of the profile you want to copy user data from. Press and hold down the CTRL key while you click each file and subfolder in this folder, except the following files: Ntuser.dat Ntuser.dat.log Ntuser.ini On the Edit menu, click Copy. Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\New_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and New_Username is the name of the user profile that you created in the "Create a New User Profile" section. On the Edit menu, click Paste. Log off the computer, and then log on as the new user. Isaac Oben MCITP:EA, MCSE

Hello, Make sure the user profiles are saved as .dat file that way users can make changes that will not change when user logs out. Also, when you migrated from workgroup to domain did change users logon names? Option might be to recreate all the profiles..copy old profiles to new domain profiles Create a new user profile on the domain computer Log on as the Administrator or as a user with administrator credentials. Click Start , and then click Control Panel . Click User Accounts . Click the Advanced tab, and then click Advanced . In the left pane, click the Users folder. On the Action menu, click New User . Enter the appropriate user information, and then click Create . Copy files to the new user profile Log on as a user other than the user whose profile you are copying files to or from. In Windows Explorer, click Tools , click Folder Options , click the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders , click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box, and then click OK . Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\Old_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and Old_Username is the name of the profile you want to copy user data from. Press and hold down the CTRL key while you click each file and subfolder in this folder, except the following files: Ntuser.dat Ntuser.dat.log Ntuser.ini On the Edit menu, click Copy . Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\New_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and New_Username is the name of the user profile that you created in the "Create a New User Profile" section. On the Edit menu, click Paste . Log off the computer, and then log on as the new user. Isaac Oben MCITP:EA, MCSE Thank you, I will try this and report back.

Hi, Its also suggested to transfer user profile using USMT. For more information, please refer to the following articles. User State Migration Tool 3.0 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722032(WS.10).aspx Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) Version 3.0.1 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=799AB28C-691B-4B36-B7AD-6C604BE4C595&displaylang=en Thanks. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.