Keep Local Profile as Domain Profile when/after joining Windows 7 box to domain
Hello all,I'm not quite sure this is where this question would go, but I wanted to get some ideas from you all since this type of thing isn't my specialty.I have several Windows 7 machines that have been used primarily on the local profile. Now, I need to join these machines to a domain, but maintain all the settings from the local profile. As we all know, a new profile is created when you log into a domain.I've tried pointing the ProfileImagePath (in the registry) to the local profile, but received a notification that I had been logged into a temporary profile. Even though copying the profile is out of the question (I have some local profiles that are 13 GB) .... I decided to entertain myself and see if it could be done. Logging in as the domain administrator, the 'Copy To' button was grayed out when selecting the local profile. So, I'm at a bit of a loss..... has anyone got any ideas or experience with this type of scenario they would share?Thanks in advance!MDH
March 12th, 2010 5:43pm

Hello all,I'm not quite sure this is where this question would go, but I wanted to get some ideas from you all since this type of thing isn't my specialty.I have several Windows 7 machines that have been used primarily on the local profile. Now, I need to join these machines to a domain, but maintain all the settings from the local profile. As we all know, a new profile is created when you log into a domain.I've tried pointing the ProfileImagePath (in the registry) to the local profile, but received a notification that I had been logged into a temporary profile. Even though copying the profile is out of the question (I have some local profiles that are 13 GB) .... I decided to entertain myself and see if it could be done. Logging in as the domain administrator, the 'Copy To' button was grayed out when selecting the local profile. So, I'm at a bit of a loss..... has anyone got any ideas or experience with this type of scenario they would share?Thanks in advance!MDH MDH, You do have some options.. you'll want to get the utility called "Windows Enabler" that will enable that grayed out "Copy To" button and allow you to copy the profile. Once you have the copied profile you can fix permissions and then overwrite the domain profile. If you run into issues with the profile afterwards - this may be a permissions issue, this is described here Good Luck,Kevin Costain @calwell on Twitter Calwell's Blog Google Profile (Buzz)
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March 13th, 2010 2:59am

You can try the following method. 1. Log on as the new user account (make sure the new user account has administrator privilege).2. Click the Start menu, and click Computer.3. Click the Organize button on the left top corner and choose Folder and Search Options. 4. Under View tab, check the "Show hidden files and folders" box and click OK to save settings.5. Navigate to the C:\Users\(old user name) folder. Note: The "old user name" refers to the user name of your old account. For example, if the user name of your old account is "Larry", the folder should be C:\Users\Larry. 5. Copy all files and folders in the C:\Users\(old user name) folder to the C:\Users\(new user name) folder. Not all settings will be moved to the new profile. Arthur Xie - MSFT
March 15th, 2010 9:31am

Windows Enabler does nothing --- looks as if you have to run as administrator, but I can't get the System applet to give me that option. This is a huge setback.
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March 20th, 2010 10:44pm

Well theres a very simple way to do it, just click on RUN or on the search bar and type: regedit then on the registry editor go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList then you'll see something similar to this: Name | Type | Data Default REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemDrive%\Users\Default (Replace Default) for the local profile Name that you want. Done!!!! If you just go to Show Hidden files and all of it and do a copy and paste into the default profile (IT WONT WORK) because the AppData folder is Restricted and it wont copy it (which means all the aplication data wont be replicated just Documents and favorites practically) if you want to duplicate docs and favorites also then copy your local profile docs and favorites to the "all users" folder. if you wanna share those 13GB with every new profile then put it on the all users folder and delete it from your main profile. (ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS BEFORE DELETING) or even better do an Acronis Image I recommend you home 2010 is very fast!! Hope this is useful Good Luck!!!! Andres Cabrera
April 7th, 2010 8:32pm

Hi Andres, Did that too, no dice -- Gave me a profile error and logged me in under a temporary profile. See my original post above. MDH
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April 8th, 2010 11:28pm

Hi All, I'm with mdh and need to preserve the local profile after joing the domain. 1) Under user profiles "copy to" is greyed even after shut down and loggin in as admin. 2) Winenabler may bring the button back, but the functionality is still not there. 3) Changing the profile image path in registry here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList causes loading into a temp profile, or worse constant boot loop. W7 obviously does not like this. I did this all the time in previous OS's and "copy to" worked with no problems. I believe the windows proposed solution is to use windows easy transfer, but this will just restore the local account as the local account, not into the domain profile. Please can you test your proposed solutions using windows 7 as I don't believe this has been resolved. Thanks, Ty
January 6th, 2011 2:08pm

Hi, All of the posts in this thread seem overly complicated. Here is how I have been doing this since Windows 2000. Yes I just did just do exactly this on my new domain with Windows 7 workstations about 10 minutes ago so I can vouch that it works flawlessly. Assuming you have one local admin user called Ernie: 1. Login as Ernie and add another local admin user Grover then Log Off. 2. Login as Grover and join the computer to the domain then reboot. 3. Login as Grover and rename C:\Users\Ernie to c:\Users\Ernie.old then reboot. 4. Login as SesameStreet.Ernie and then reboot. 5. Login as Grover and delete C:\Users\Ernie and rename C:\Users\Ernie.old to C:\Users\Ernie then reboot. 6. Login as SesameStreet.Ernie. Done, the local profile is now the domain profile. You can probably substitute all of the reboots (except the one after joining the domain which is required) with Log Offs, that worked in Windows 2000 and XP. But being that this is Windows 7 I figured I would play it safe. Note: I am not using roaming profiles in my setup, I see no reason why this wouldn't work in that situation as well but I have not tested it.
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June 8th, 2011 11:43am

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