Quick I need a MENTOR to help with some SERVER 2003 Issues

[TalantMike]

Ok, so here goes. I know that many of you will gasp when I say this, but I am the ops director for a small company (about 20 employees, all computer users that are networked using a simple workgroup set up, until now!) and, due to the small part, I am also in charge of the IT. We can not really justify paying someone, at least not yet, as I can keep up fairly well. So my IT knowledge is moderate at best for now, but fortunately I am a very quick learner and can be directed without much difficulty. I understand what needs to be done and why it needs to be done, it's just that little where do I go next that gets me. So... we have had a Poweredge server running Server 2003 (luckily enough). It has been sitting on the network but not being used for at least 2 years now. Everytime I see it, it irks me to no end that we are wasting a perfectly good system, as our computer systems and back up is out of control and fairly vulnerable pretty much becasue no one has been able to think about the advantages of using it.

Enough about that. We had an IT consultant come in a do some phone work for us (Voip) and he casually mentioned that we should have a domain set up on the server to controll everything. So I looked into it and completely agree. Unfortunately, he is no longer in the business and does not have much time to help me. He was going to walk me through the main things at no charge, as we are pretty good friends, sort of.

So, I was able to successfully able to set up the DNS server, as well as an AD domain! TO my surprise with not much difficulty. Before you ask, yes, I have created a test user and have been able to successfully join the domain. I am figuring now that is not really a big deal. Now for the first of I am sure many questions, that is why I need a MENTOR to pass the info to me.

Setting up new users (new employees) is not a problem at all, that is very easy. My 1st problem is:

When I go to a current workgroup users computer (the one's on the old set up) and I want to add them to the domain, HOW do I transfer all of their files and setting over the their new domain user account (on the same computer.) I have tried to use the FAST wizard, and I think that i may be doing something wrong, cuz that does not work. On the test computer I added a new user and it has all fresh settings, That is not what I was hoping was going to happen.

Also, in reference to the FAST wizard, here is what I did:
1.) Loged on as the local user and copied the files/settings(from activity) to a shared folder on the server that I mapped to the z: drive, thinking that I could just log on as the new user and conduct the FAST wizard to activity by simply directing it to copy the files from that same shared network folder. The only problem is that I can not even see that shared folder with either the new user or the administrator (server) user. I checked the permissions for both the users as well as the shared folder, and they all seem to allow this type of action!

So I am certainly frustrated at this point as I know this is simple to and I am just missing something. I also tried using moveuser.exe, and kept getting errors.


The only other thing that I want to know is how do I redirect a domain users My Documents to a folder on the server. Again, something that I know can be done, but I am missing something.


So anyone of you kind sirs, or madam's that can help me out, I would greatly appreciate it. By the way, I forgot to mention that I need to have this done by middle of Feb.

 

[teckystuff]

This is kinda a tough one - there are ways and means to try and copy the profiles from a local to a domain setup but more than not you just end up with tons of problems. Personally what I would do is first setup up a "Users" folder on the server and then give everyone their own home folder under this. Create all the user accounts if you havent already. Assign the appropriate NTFS and sharing permissions to the home folders (you may have to read up on this to get it right)
This will help:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816313

Once all of this is done let the users login to their computers with their local accounts (not domain) and then map a drive to their home folders - you will get prompted for a password, type it in the format domain\username for the username and then their domain password. This will allow them access to their home folder where they should then copy all of their documents from the My Documents folder on their local computer. Copy other things like favorites etc too if need be. If you use Outlook or Outlook express it will get a bit more complicated but my the sounds of things you guys dont have exchange servers etc. Once all the data has been copied over, log out and back in but this time with the domain account. You should now be able to access all you documents again.
Its not the prettiest way of doing things but you have a very little risk of profile corruption or data loss.
Hope it helps

 

[baronne]

If you setup profiles on the server, copy your user's profile to that user's profile on the server and when they log in for the first time, it should copy the profile on the server...

:: baronne
------------------
"lekker, shot bru

 

[TalantMike]

I apprecitate the help on this thus far. To be quite honest I am pleased that you have not done what I would expect some people to do and tell me I shoudn't be messing with it, yadda yadda. Although I am not certified, I am not an idiot either. I do not just jump in and make changes here and there haphazardly. I read exhaustively until I am positive I know what I am doing, I mean I did get the DNS and AD Domain roles working pefectly fine. Anyway, I will try these suggestions and I will let you know how it works out. Stay with me as I will more than likely have more questions very soon. (I try to find the info myself through microsoft and other reference before I do ask and usually do not ask uneless I can not find it or I am confused.) My next step, probably not until next month, is to set up the Pop3 and SMTP servers to host our own email! Do not worry I will have a little help with that. Thanks.

 

[teckystuff]

Hey Dont stress about asking "stupid" questions - it just means more people will be able to answer you

 

[ntinlin]

If you want an easy way of creating the user folders, assigning permissions, shares etc. and updating AD profile I put this batch file together back in the NT days.

For only twenty you can just save this as create.cmd or similar and do each one individually or you could adapt it to do all of them from a list file.

You'd then do create user_logon_name which becomes %1 in the batch. xcacls and rmtshare are resource kit utils. Proset is by Mike Gercevich in 1996 and probably hard to find. It was the only thing that would allow me to set the profile to the U: drive at the time. You could probably use an AD util nowadays instead.

d:
cd \users
md %1
xcacls %1 /G administrators:F /Y
xcacls %1 /E /G domain_name\%1:F
rmtshare \\server_name\%1$=h:\users\%1 /grant everyone:F /remark:"Home share for %1"
proset \\dc_name %1 /home:\\server_name\%1$ /hdrv:u:

Nothing fancy but if it helps...

Neill

 

[TalantMike]

As a quick update. I have managed to use the FATS wizard to move a local user's profile to a new domain user's profile on another computer (by copying the old files and settings to a share on the server, and then uploading the new user from there). Right now I have a "lab" using two different computers that are currently not in use to get this down before I deploy this for the rest of my users. I guess that is one smart thing. I was not able to use the FATS wizard to accomplish this on the same computer. (i.e. saving the files and settings for the old local user, and then logging on as the new domain user, and uploading back to the same computer.) This what was driving me crazy! I copied them to a share on the server, but then i could not see them as the domain user. I am pretty sure it was because I overlooked something that I had done earlier. That is, instead of signing the computer onto the domain initially through My Computer -> properties -> computer name -> join a domain. What I did instead was click the Network Id option(to join a domain and create a local user account) which, although I haven't tested that theory yet as I took lunch, I think is the reason I was unable to see the shares. I am off to do more tests. I will update when I get to that point. The next step is to a.) create migrating profiles, which I am pretty comfortable with, and b.) redirect domain users' My Documents to the server. We have a lot of comers and goers here, including temps, and it is a major headache to have to copy each individual's My documents to the server and then reset all the settting, etc. This way they are already on the server to begin with.

WAIT - I do have one more question, how can I make it (or can I I should say) configure it to where a user can go to another computer and have their outlook .pst files load at any terminal they log onto. In other words esentially have those files specific to the domain user (on the server), instead of the computer's HD?

Thanks again ahead of time.

 

[nsantin]

Here is a trick that worked for me.

Add the computer to the domain, have the user login with their domin login.

Then reboot and login as the ADMIN.

Goto C:\Documnets and settings...

You should see a folder for the Domain user and the local user. Copy the NTUSER.DAT and LOG files from the domain user folder to the local user one. (obviously backup the original)

Delete the domain user folder then rename the local folder with the EXACT same name and puncuation (if any)

Reboot again and login as the Domain user.

The majority of the setting should work, you might need to cleanup things a little bit.

Not sure if this is a "support tip", but it's worked for me in the past. If all hell breaks loose, update the NTUSER files with the backedup ones.

 

[nsantin]

Sorry, got that reversed. Ignore the NTUSER copy, just rename the local user folder to the Domain folder.

 

[TalantMike]

Thanks for the tip. I have not had a chance to try that yet, but let me ask this in reference to the .pst files. Let's say I export the current users pst files to application data folder, and then redirect this folder to the file server, wouldn't that enable the user to go to any computer and have that data accessible. I know that I can have their Outlook settins follow them around, but I am unclear about the files themselves. However, after I thought about it, the users do not do much moving around, I simply want to have as much of the individuals data on the server as opposed to the computer's HD. Will this work? Thanks.

 

[NickFerrar]

I wouldn't put PST files in profiles (especially roaming ones), much better in an ordinary home drive located on a network server, the reason being the file gets pretyt big and is frequently modified so would be copied up and down all the time which dramatically slows log on and log off times.

 

[TalantMike]

That is what I was thinking this weekend too. I also thought about the fact that I am no worried about the roaming profiles right now. My people do not roam very often, so I need not mess with that right now. I do have one questions though. When I use the files and settings transfer wizard, is it supposed to transfer the outlook files as well, or do I have to take care of that separately? The last time I did it, it brought over the Outlook setting, but not the files. This should clear up about everything that I need to have done to move everyone over to a domain. Thanks.

 

[solo7777]

Here is what I did that seems to work quite well. Instead of using the server to house the FASTW compressed file, use the users local hard drive. Just create a c:\temp folder and run the wizard from the workgroup logon. When finished, then join the domain and rerun the wizard under the new domain user. Create your scripts for drive mapping on the Primary DC and create GPO's to run the startup scripts, and your all set. It works better than using the server, then you won't have a problem getting to your FASTW compressed file. Just make sure the user has enough HD space, depending on their profile, it could be quite big.

As far as outlook transferring succesfully, I have had success with office 2002, and full versions of Office 2003, but if you use an upgrade version of 2003, then the outlook.pst needed to be imported manually.