My windows 2003 standard server crashed due to a strong electrical surge. I've reinstalled everything, but now I have 50 windows XP workstations that I need to add to the server. I created new user accounts with the same names first. Each time an old user tries to log on the server claims it does not have a computer account that matches the workstation. I then have to add the workstation to the server (I do this from the workstation). The problem occurs when the user logs in the workstation creates a new user profile and all the software settings and other changes that previously existed for this user are gone. Is there a way to avoid having to setup all the settings again for each of the 50 users and letting them maintain their previous local profiles?

Ghost all the machines with same image ok

I don't see how ghosting will help him. The user has a profile on the workstation and when they re-join the domain it creates a new profile with the default settings. The old settings are still there in the old profile. You just need to log on as the local admin, make sure that "show all hidden files" is selected in Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options. Go to Documents and Settings and copy the old profile into the new profile so the next time they logon they will get their original profile again. I had to do this when we changed our domain name. We only had about 30 users so it was not a time consuming undertaking. Though I would think there is a better way if you had to do this for hundreds of users.

Thanks guys. I did what Cleo suggested and coppied everything (except for the hidden system profile files.) It worked for the most part, but because the folder names are different between the old and new profile, Outlook could not find it's previous data and therefore I had to point it in the right direction and re-enter the connection data. Wish there was a better way to do this, I can't imagine a huge corporation doing it this way, but they probably have all user profiles forced and implemented by the PDC. Thanks for the help. :-)

Huge corporations employ more than one domain controller which would prevent the necessity of having to rejoin 50 workstations to a rebuilt domain due to a single server failure. Case in point, I employe four domain controllers for a medium sized network. As for your local profile issue, I cannot think of a quick work around for your profile issue. Your domain, although named the same as before, is still a new domain with new user and computer accounts. The SID's have changed and of course, everything will have to be recreated. Just be careful in attempting to copy local profiles, your user.dat file will hose the new profiles.