Topic: Moving Off "Dead" NT 4 Box -- Need Tips

[rf131]

Hi There,

I am in the middle of moving users to an SME box.  They were originally connected to an NT 4 box that has the same domain name.  It died yesterday... wouldn't even power up (6 years old).

During migration to the new server, I'm getting a mixed bag of symptoms on the pcs.  Turns out I need to make the regedit change requiresignorseal, force netbios over tcpip, and remove and reconnect them to the domain.  This gets them on the new box, but not without some work on their Outlook e-mail.  It looks like a new profile is being created or the current one is being overwritten, even though the domain name is the same.  This results in an "install" of Microsoft Office the first time they run it.  They are using local storage files for e-mail, and in some cases I have been able to recover them, other cases it is like they have been written over when logging in.  Some desktop icons are missing, but I'll deal with that.

I did some testing earlier that I thought was successful, incorrectly thinking that a pc I was testing with was part of the old domain.  Wrong.  Someone else had put this pc on the network, and it had never been joined to the domain (bottom line -- my bad).  They were just mapping drives through Windows Explorer.  If I had noticed this then my testing would have uncovered some of these issues I'm having.

I have only migrated three pcs out of 12 to the new server.  The others are still up, and I'm wondering if someone could give me some tips about moving these to the new server?  Maybe make an Outlook backup to a pst file before connecting to the new server?  That is probably my biggest issue.

I put this upgrade off for too long, so long that the old one died, and that's my fault (at least I had good backups!)

Thanks for any tips you might have.

Kevin

[dsemuk]

Although you are using the same domain and user names NT doesn't see your users as the same user.

The SIDs created when you joint your users to the Windows domain will be different to the SIDs on the old NT box, that why you are seing a new profile being created, you are effectivly creating a new user.

If you have time and the will power

If your Outlook client supports IMAP (I don't use it) I would suggest that you use IMAP to move your mail from the local machine onto the SME server.

Dave

[rf131]

dsemuk,

I really didn't want to use SME to host e-mail, I just thought I would keep it simple with them as POP3 clients to our domain hosted by our ISP.  I'll probably just keep it that way because I can easily administer the users with a web page, and I'll let the ISP deal with the mail server issues.

I do all this work on a strictly volunteer basis, so I need it as basic as possible.

I should have done a little more research on this...  

Anyway, for those contemplating this, some lessons learned:
1.  Don't procrastinate on changing out servers. I let this server go for two years longer that I should have.  I made not impacting the users a higher-priority than getting this done.  I could have made a migration easier with this server still up and running.
2.  Use a different domain name (MAYBE).  I think if I would have used a different domain name, I would have a clear folder path on the client to move items from the old to the new.  I think using the same domain name was a mistake.  Those of you who have more experience can add your comments here.
3.  Scrutinize testing a little better. I did not get deep enough into the client setup to realize that it was not a domain member, but just a workgroup.  The guy who did this didn't put it on the domain, but set up some shares.  My testing didn't reveal any problems, but this pc was not a member of the domain.
4.  Be sure you create a backup of pc-stored Outlook data. This gets particularly tricky when the old domain controller isn't available.  Use a local account to copy the psts and put them somewhere safe before working through the domain changeover.  I still yet have to "find" the Outlook pst files for two of the three users I have already migrated; I hope I can.  The difficulty in this lies in the fact that the usernames are the same on the old and new servers, and I'm still not sure what effect that has on the Documents and Settings folder tree for the user.  Anyone who has experienced and has pointers please respond.
5.  Use the Microsoft Personal Folders Backup utility. I found after the fact that Microsoft has this utility that will prompt users to backup Outlook data files on a regular basis.  Since Microsoft does not support Outlook data files over a LAN, I'll set this up on each pc to remind users to backup their Outlook data to their /home folder on the SME box.  The URL for this utility is:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010875321033.aspx

I'll be going over later today to migrate the rest of the pcs to the new server.  With this information, hopefully the remainder will go a little smoother.

Kevin

[TMP]

2.  Use a different domain name (MAYBE).  I think if I would have used a different domain name, I would have a clear folder path on the client to move items from the old to the new.  I think using the same domain name was a mistake.  Those of you who have more experience can add your comments here.

If you have two domain user profiles on the same machine with the same username, you should be able to tell which is which by looking in C:\Documents and Settings.  An account named 'kevin' on domain1 will be stored in a folder called 'kevin'.  If you then join that computer to a new domain and logon as a user named 'kevin', the profile folder created will be called 'kevin.newdomain'.  Does that make sense?

Hope this at least helps a little.  Good luck.

TMP

[rf131]

Well, I think I have learned my lesson...

For me, the best thing to do is avoid domains, and just use a workgroup.  It will provide the security I need.  Since we only have 8 users right now, it isn't a big deal to configure each pc.

There is just too much "baggage" with domains for this number of computers, and besides that, I don't want to learn any more about them other than my rudimentary knowledge.

As always, hindsight is 20-20 vision.  If I had figured this out before all these problems, I would have just put the SME box in place as a workgroup and migrated in phases.

[pearless]

If your Outlook client supports IMAP (I don't use it) I would suggest that you use IMAP to move your mail from the local machine onto the SME server.

Dave

[/color]

This has caught my interest, I have an old PST file (and outlook 2003 still installed so I can access the old file) prior to moving to SME, how can I migrate all of my old emails?

Douglas

[raem]

rf131

>..For me, the best thing to do is avoid domains, and just use a
> workgroup.  It will provide the security I need.  Since we only have 8
> users right now, it isn't a big deal to configure each pc.


I disagree. If you setup the sme server as a Primary domain controller, configure roaming profiles and have your workstations log on to the domain, then all your user profiles are stored on the server.
You should also insist that all users store any data on the server either in ibays or user home folders. Advise users that data stored on workstation hard drives is NEVER backed up and in the event of a workstation failure the local hard drive will be erased. You can quickly rebuild the workstation from a standardised hard drive image (eg Ghost image) that you have hopefully taken.

I would also recommend that all users mail accounts are switched to IMAP and the mail data is also stored on the sme server. OK it's not how you are doing it now, but that way you have total control. sme server is a quite capable mail server especially with add on antivirus & spam contribs & tweaks, which by the way are default in sme 7.
You can get your ISP to forward all email to your domain or use fetchmail or just set the system up to be a smtp mail server with your own domain(usual arrangement).
You should take daily backups of the server and in the event of a problem all user data, profiles etc are available from the server backups. When you rejoin the domain (if you need to) all the user settings are automatically there in the server based roaming profiles.
These profiles get copied to the local workstation at login, so the "new" local profile created by rejoining the domain is not an issue.

I voluntarily manage a bigger system than yours and that's how I do it.

Of course ypu will still have some data migration issues from the old NT system, all I could suggest is that you repair & setup (from backups) that old box temporarily until all data is manualy migrated.
You could configure the POP & IMAP accounts on your email clients and then just drag all the messages across (to the server based IMAP folders).