Multiple profiles for same user 2

[TimK01]

We have recently had problems with our Small Business Server which have resulted in the server being deinstalled and reinstalled.

On the XP Pro clients every users account has changed. IN the Documents and settings area there used to be a folder named username.domainname where all the users settings, desktop, email, templates etc live.

With the reinstall of the server a nre folder has been created on every machine called username.domainname.000 and has none of the users old information. The old username.domainname folder exists but the users have no access to it.

1. Is it possible to get that back to the way things where?

2. At login we use a login script to update some files in the users profile, is there a reserved word (ie %userprofile%) that I can use to get the correct folder?

3. can anyone tell me briefly what is happening?

 

[bcastner]

Rename username.domain.000 username.domain.bak
Rename username.domain username.domain.000

 

[intelwizrd]

User profiles are created with the intent that only that user can access it and as such the computer will assign permissions to only that user. remember that user names are pretty much irrelavent after the creation of the profile folder. what realy matters is the SSID of the account. if by "every users account has changed" you mean that they were recreated, then the user will not be able to access the folder. when the user first logs in, the computer will create a profile for the user. if the name of the user account is the same, a folder already exists for that user, and the owner of the folder is that user (SSID is checked here), then the computer will use that profile. if not a new folder will be created, usualy what the old one was called but with something added. like the 000.

there are a number of ways to correct the issue you can move the files with a script as you mentioned but i can't remember what the environment variable is for the profile (if there is one, but my instinct tells me there is).

you can manualy go to every machine and move the contents of the old profile over into the new folder and reset the security permissions

you can remap the profile locations in the registry but that can be tedious if there are a large number of computers

if you are using active directory on a 2003 server, (dont think you are but something to think about), you can specify the profile location (must be done per user account) to a folder on the server. In a GPO, there is a machine setting that tells the system to not check for ownership that you need to set. then you would copy the information for the users into the folder on the server, assign the user full rights and enable propagation, delete the profiles on the local machines (recomend moving them into a temp folder incase there is a problem), and then have the user log in. the system will check to see if a profile exists in the location specified in AD, download the information to the local machine (it caches the profile on the local machine to minimize network traffic), when the user logs off it will upload/sync with the server copy and then you can back up the profiles if you want right off the server.

Hope this helps a little. It has been a long day and i appologize if i have been unclear about anything. I know how frustrating it can be dealing with some of these things so i thought i would try to help. maybe someone else can say what i was trying to say a little better.

cheers

 

[TimK01]

Thanks Guys

That makes perfect sense. As part of our server problem was moving to 2003 and Active Directory so I guess that will finaly sort everything out