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Moving a domain user profile from one domain to a different one

Sharyn Schmidt 241 Reputation points
2022-12-07T16:26:44.937+00:00

Hi.

I have users with domain user profiles that need to be moved from one domain to another, without losing anything. They also have office 365 in which their sign in shouldnt change, but the move seems to cause issues, same with their one drive.

I have tried this using some of the free tools out there and it hasnt worked well. These are the 2 top execs in my company and I do not want the kind of complications I've had with our regular employees. I've checked the forums but most of the answers are dated years ago.

To further complicate the matter, one of our execs has many passwords stored in his chrome /google user account in his browser. I am hoping to be able to migrate all of his google profile settings as part of the domain profile move.

Can someone please post a list of things I should be doing in the order I should be doing them? Purchasing migration tools is not an option. I have already migrated approx 15 users and with each migration I've run into a different issue, too numerous to list here.

Most of the users have been ok having to recreate missing things on their profiles but these last 2 people want it to be perfect, of course.

All advise and lessons learned will be helpful.

This should include permissions, and desktop icons, etc.

Thanks in advance!

Sharyn

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A set of directory-based technologies included in Windows Server.
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  1. Dave Patrick 426.3K Reputation points MVP
    2022-12-07T18:14:48.74+00:00

    Logon once as the new domain user so the new profile gets created, then logon as another user with local admin rights, navigate to
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

    find the new domain profile and point the expand string ProfileImagePath to the old profile.

    --please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  2. Dave Patrick 426.3K Reputation points MVP
    2022-12-07T21:56:43.987+00:00

    If you logon to the local machine first, then to the domain you would end up with two profiles.
    %username%
    and
    %username%.%userdomain%
    Else if you logon to the domain first, then to the local machine you would end up with
    %username%
    and
    %username%.%computername%

    Maybe looking at the timestamps on ntuser.dat will help you figure it out. ntuser.dat would get updated via the last logon activity.

    --please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--