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Moving a Windows 2000 user account

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by evojnovich

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I have approximately 50 windows 2000 computers, no domain, just peer-to-peer networking, and I am upgrading the hardware on about half of them. Is there a way to copy the user information from one machine to another? Some of these machines have up to fifteen user accounts, and I would rather not have to set all these users up all over again.

6 replies

by jschein

You have a few options, you're a lucky one...

You can start using roaming profiles... Logon to the machines as local admin, and copy their profiles to the server if you are using a server.

If not, copy them to a main machine in which you can just copy them back upon completion of upgrade.

Roaming profiles goes more in-depth, but if replacing hard drives, OS, software, etc... It's not good to transfer profiles as the old profiles don't work too well with a new OS or software missing, or the end user had a c + d hard drive but will now only have a c drive... Lots of issues.

It's best to just backup their documents, make a base image that all users or groups will have so they are all identical, then copy their data files back.

Good luck

by evojnovich

I am NOT using a domain. I wish to transfer all user data (files, usernames, passwords) from an older 2000 machine to a brand new 2000 machine. Is this possible?

by jschein

"You can start ... server IF you are using a server."

I understood your question and posted a couple of options.

NO, you cannot move all of those things over. Best solution is to copy their documents and data files to a networked pc for temp storage, load your new system image or OS and copy the old data back over.

by tksolway

If it is just a local user account you can simply copy the user's folder out of the Documents and settings folder. These user folders and designed to contain all of the users data without caring about the acutal computer is on. just go to c:\documents and settings and copy the user's folder to a backup. When you are done re-installing you will have to recreated that user on the machine, then copy the files in that folder to the new users folder.

by yawbe

Yes, tksolway@shaw.ca is right. All you have to do is to copy their folder in c:\documents and settings\username where username is the name of the person. You will have to create the username on the machine. No way around that. Then, log into the machine as the user. A folder will be created for that user. Log off from the machine and log into the machine as administrator and replace the user folder with the one from the old machine. This folder will contain all the user data, including user settings. Log off and let the user log in. The machine will appear just like the old machine, even including the desktop settings.

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