We had our Server 2019 RAID fail and we had to rebuild it from scratch. This has now been completed and we're finding another issue – we now have to migrate users to this new domain w/o having them setup a new profile on their computers.
I've read through How to join Domain and convert local user profile in the new AD user profile? however that is mainly focused on converting a local account to a domain account.
Is there a way to convert a profile on a Windows computer, where the AD Server no longer exists, to another domain?
Best Answer
You can't bypass the fact it will create a new profile. It's how you want to migrate the settings that matter here.
For the profile's copying after the profile is created;
A dirty way that sometime work is to log with the user on the computer, you let the profile create, and after that you restart, log with an admin account, and rename the old profile to the new profile folder. That can work, but the user need administrative right inside the computer, as it would allow him to use the other settings of the old user (as the registry would block a non admin to read another user settings)
A better approach but still not supported, copy migwiz from a win7/8 computer and run it to migrate the profile from each computer.
The final option, and best solution is to just let the computer recreate the profile so they will start in new and to recopy only the needed data if needed.
The if needed is important there as in example if an user access important files from his desktop, why not in a shared folder to be inside the backup ? It's a good way to make sure the needed document are stored inside the correct location.
A comment for your server itself:
You don't have a backup of your Active Directory ? It's essential to have one. Please check Windows Backup feature in the minimum to create a system state backup. Having to recreate all profiles is something, but imagine if you had a SQL server with security built from your AD ? that would block the SQL from working correctly. Imagine to have a onprem Exchange ?
Make sure to note the fail there to remediate it. It just take in the minimum a USB disk with a role to make a AD backup.