Took Computer Home Can't Copy Old Network Account

[rjr]

I took my computer home. Placed it on a local network workgroup of name Glamery. The two computeres on the network see one another. Meanwhile, I have lost the desktop, favorites, etc. associated with the account I had at work, when I logged into a WinNT Domain. The accounts are listed as "unknown accout", and I do not have the option of copying "unknown account" to a new or existing user account. The button "copy to" is grayed out.

The old login account "rick.prudential" is listed in the documnets and settings folder, and all settings appear to be there (folders, etc.). One of the things I lost is my MS Outlook calendar, inbox, etc. I have verified that I did not keep the files on the network drive.

How do I get my user account here at home looking like the one I had at the office? I spent a lot of time on the shortcuts, desktop, outlook files, etc. Please Help!

 

[ianf]

All the stuff that you have described is stored as your user profile on your login server at work. Unless you have a VERY understanding SysAdmin or VPN access to work you will struggle to get the data you seek.

Hoops to jump through in order to get this to work include making sure that there is an NT/2000 Server on your home network to service login requests, making sure that this server also has your mail forwarded to it from your work's Exchange server, and clearing all this with your boss.

Exchange as far as I know doesn't use a mapped network drive concept, it works much more like a client/server application, so unless you set up local storage of your mail it will always be on the server.

Good news is that imediately you get back into the office the PC will be back to "normal". Ian

"IF" is not a word it's a way of life

 

[a073235]

I think this is what Ian was getting at, but all you'll need to do is login back to your original network once (either by bringing it back in to the office or via a VPN session). Once logged into the original profile the ability to copy your "work" profile INTO your "home" profile will be available instead of grayed out. You may have some trouble getting Outlook back into shape, but everything else should be fine.

BTW, do you still have the option in the dropdown at login to login to your old office profile? I'm not sure if this cached information goes away after joinging a workgroup, but if not you could "login" to the old network from home using cached credentials if your machine was set up to store cached login information (which it is by default).

Last chance, and as listed in another post in this section, you can manually copy most of the shortcuts, data, etc. in your "rick.prudential" profile in Documents and Settings to your new profile if you still have rights to the old folder. If not, login as local administrator and give yourself the rights to do so.

Hope this helps. Heath Racine
Principal Systems Engineer
Fidelity Investments

 

[rjr]

I took the computer back to the office and logged into the WinNT domain using the old user name and password. None of the desktop items, or outlook files returned. It treated me similar to a new account. The IT guy did nothing on the WinNT PDC, nothing.

Unknown account was still listed for what appears to be my old rick.prudential profile, in the user section of the system folder of control panel.

The shortcuts are something that I can recreate in 30 minutes. The Inbox of Outlook 2000 is a different matter. I recieve all work bids and engagement contracts via fax, which is posted to my email account. Losing the Inbox hurts. I did a Search for a text string common in the emails and found a .pkg file of a size and date that make me suspect it contains my Inbox.

I am so bummed that taking the box in and logging in did not work. Meanwhile, do you have any suggestions, or should I go to the MS Office forum to try to recover the Inbox? Why can't MS just tell us the file names?!!!

 

[a073235]

Unless you have purposely setup Exchange to deliver e-mail directly to your desktop into an offline store instead of leaving it on the server you haven't lost anything. An offline store by default has the extension .ost so do a search for it. Archive files in which you may have saved mail would be .pst by default. E-mail text would not be searchable within the file like you tried.

Normally all of your data is still on the server and you just have to configure a new Outlook profile using your existing username and password to login and view your data again. Regardless of your machine, you should just be able to go to another user's machine, configure a new Outlook profile, and view your data.

In either case, whether you were working off the server or locally, NO DATA has been lost! The Outlook profile is completely independent of the user profile on your machine, and once a .pst or .ost is created it won"t go away without purposely deleting it. Is your IT guy involved in this issue? I would have thought he would have put you at ease about this!? Hope this helps!

Heath Racine
Principal Systems Engineer
Desktop and Mobile Platforms

 

[robomax]

If you changed your computer to be on your home workgroup 'Glamery', it's not going to work on your work domain. Please contact you Network Administrator.