Everything's changed :(

[PCTechNerd]

Hello all. I was recently hired by this business, and have been working and reworking their entire network/server setup. We had our AD running on a Server 2003 Standard OS. Yesterday I received a new RM Server that's specs are about 10x better then the current server we're using for AD and it's running 2003 Enterprise. We only have a staff of about 12, so Instead of trying to export/import the AD settings from one server to the other, I decided to recreate them.

So after the day was done, I had everyone shut down their PC's. I then renamed all the PC's 1 by one to have them comply to a standard and follow suit with their department (the PC names were either really ridiculous or windows default jargin) and then i disco'd the old server and connected the new server. I added and setup all the users and computers in AD, and then tested the logons per pc. everything went good.

The next day is when I started seeing the issue.

Before I switched them if one user had a shared folder setup, anyone could access it by My Network Places>Entire Network>Microsoft Windows Network>EPINC (our forest)>[pc name]> and then clicking on the shared folder name.

Now when attempting that I come across 1 of 2 situations.

1. When double clicking on [pc name] I get the error "\\[pc name] is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request."

2. When double clicking on [pc name] it asks me for the user name/password

What is different that is causing this? I also noticed it's not just doing it for one PC on the network, but all of them, and it's causing some issues (especially since all of our printers are shared from the AD server).

Any help would be appreciated. thanks

 

[PCTechNerd]

can anyone help with this?

 

[Scotsdude]

you renamed all the PCs? did you remove the PC from domain, then re-join the domain?

------------------------------------------------------
Matt
Life is all shadows and dust.
Live it up with women and wine while you can

 

[PCTechNerd]

i renamed all the pc's before i setup the new AD server, so on the new server i only added the new PC names

 

[Scotsdude]

try removing them from the domain, then re-joining the domain, from the pc itself.

I've had something similar, and this solved it. Its something to do with the renamed PC's not getting registered properly

------------------------------------------------------
Matt
Life is all shadows and dust.
Live it up with women and wine while you can

 

[lhuegele]

You can also try running the following from the command prompt on each PC you have this problem:

gpupdate /force

But I agree with Matt, remove and re-add the machines in question to the domain from the PC's themselves.

 

[PCTechNerd]

thanks, that resolved the issue, but it created another issue that i've resolved somewhat.

by doing that, it created a new user account on the PC that is not local. I went ahead beforehand to backup whatever they needed backing up, and then just added it to the new user account. Where there is an issue is that there are certain things that i didn't backup for a user, but i can't login to the old user account. it doesn't even show up in "users" but there's a folder in the c:/documents and settings/ folder.

In users it just shows "administrator" and "guest", but in the docs and settings folder I have 2 other folders. Megan and Megan.EPINC (the latter being the user hosted by AD).

How do I restore the old "Megan" user so that I can log in to said user and backup some other things needed? (browsing the files in the folder isn't enough).

 

[LawnBoy]

You can assign the old Megan profile to the new Megan.EPINC account. It's a pain, but it's do-able...

1. As Admin, give Megan.EPINC full rights to the Megan folder in Docs and Settings.
2. Open regedit, navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
3. Figure out which profile is Megan.EPINC by looking at the ProfileImagePath value.
4. Change the ProfileImagePath value for Megan.EPINC to point to the Megan folder.

The next time Megan.EPINC logs in she will have the old Megan profile.

hth.


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[58sniper]

A couple of questions:

1. What was the reasoning behind creating a new AD instead of just migrating? That would have made things SO much simpler, and wouldn't require you to visit each desktop (well, you could visit them to do the renaming, but that's it). Even with the renaming, you could have been completely cut over in no time. Zero downtime except for the reboot of the workstations after renaming.

2. What's the need for Enterprise? Are you clustering?

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[PCTechNerd]

the reason for recreating is for my own learning and knowledge. I'm still learning the ins and outs of AD, and i'm also tasked with making the whole network PCI compliant, which the old setup was def not.

The need for enterprise? 8 gigs of ram. standard can't handle more than 4.

 

[PCTechNerd]

By the By, the last suggestion didn't work. It won't let me add "Megan.EPINC" to the security of the "Megan" folder as it's only searching and allowing for local users (which there are none). just to be sure I tried adding a user as "megan" under the EPINC domain on the PC itself, and it still wouldn't find it as a "local" user for which to add to the security. (even when trying to change domains that the search is under, it only finds the PC name "CS01").

I then went into HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

and the only things they had listed were the Admin etc.. profiles. no profile listed for Megan.EPINC or "Megan".


I'm lost here guys, lol...

 

[58sniper]

the reason for recreating is for my own learning and knowledge. I'm still learning the ins and outs of AD, and i'm also tasked with making the whole network PCI compliant, which the old setup was def not.

That's creating a lot of user inconvenience just for learning. That's what a lab environment is for.

8GB of RAM - so you're running a ton of applications on that server as well?

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[PCTechNerd]

we've only an employee base of 12, and all work was done and switched after work hours.

no, not running many apps on the AD server. We're looking at the future, not right now. the company is expanding continually so we're prepping for the long haul.