Moving users to new forest 1

[daveinmn]

Hi,

I have a client, who has a client, who has about 1,200 users that work for a company sold off by its parent. Therfore they need to move users/data/email off to a new forest/domain/exchange environment.

Any opinions or ideas on the "fastest" way to do this?
Tools that I can use to automate this?

I'm only concerned with the users and email accounts/data.

Thank you for your help,

David

 

[compgirlfhredi]

You can use the Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit’s Movetree utility to move organizational units (OUs), users, or computers between domains in a forest. This capability is useful for consolidating domains or to reflect organizational restructuring.

You can’t use Movetree to move certain objects, such as local and domain global groups. If you move the container that these objects are in, the utility places the objects in an orphan container in the source domain’s LostAndFound container.

Movetree also doesn’t move associated data, such as policies, profiles, logon scripts, and personal data. To move these items, use the Remote Administration Scripts tool to write custom scripts.

Movetree’s syntax is

movetree [/start | /continue | /check] [/s SrcDSA] [/d DstDSA] [/sdn SrcDN] [/ddn DstDN] [/u Domain\Username] [/p Password] [/quiet]
The following table explains each command

/start Starts a Movetree operation with the /check option by default. Use /startnocheck to start a Movetree operation without a check.
/continue Continues a failed Movetree operation.
/check Checks the whole tree before moving an object.
/s <SrcDSA> Source server's fully qualified primary DNS name. Required.
/d <DstDSA> Destination server's fully qualified primary DNS name. Required.
/sdn <SrcDN> Source subtree's root distinguished name (DN). Required for /start and /check operations. Optional for /continue operations.
/ddn <DstDN> Destination subtree's root DN. Relative distinguished name (RDN) plus destination parent DN. Required.
/u <Domain\UserName> Domain name and user account name. Optional.
/p <Password> Password. Optional.
/quiet Quiet mode. Doesn’t include screen output. Optional.

Run the Movetree utility in /check mode first, to perform a test without carrying out the action. You’ll see any errors that will occur, and the utility will write these errors to the file movetree.err in your current directory. If your test is OK, proceed with the /start option.

An example Movetree command is

movetree /check /s titanic.market.savilltech.com /d pluto.legal.savilltech.com /sdn OU=testing,DC=Market,DC=Savilltech,DC=COM /ddn OU=test2,DC=Legal,DC=Savilltech,DC=COM
This command would move the OU testing from the domain market.savilltech.com to the OU test2 in the domain legal.savilltech.com.

 

[compgirlfhredi]

Before moving to my 2000 server, I read and reread this article:

http://www.cedpa-k12.org/databus-issues/v41n2/microsoft.shtml