We have about twenty systems in our office, and are currently setup in a workgroup configuration. Administration has just become too difficult lately, and I've decided to migrate our system from a workgroup to a domain. I just have a couple of concerns. First, I'm worried about the profiles of my users. Currently, we use local profiles (obviously). I'm interested in roaming profiles however. The obvious thing I don't understand about this, is that what good does a roaming profile do you? I mean, I have all my administrative software on my system, why would it help to have a roaming profile? I'd have a bunch of useless icons on my desktop, right? Are users on a domain, automatically given roaming profiles? If so, how do I disable this if I decide roaming profiles aren't what we want. I mean, I want to be able to log on to any computer with the authenticated privelages allowed by the domain, and I want the domain to control the local security policies of each computer, but I just don't think roaming profiles (at least the way I understand them) will be useful. That's all I can think of at the moment. Perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about? LOL! Please point me in the right direction. All I'm wanting to do, is to move my users from workgroup to domain so that I can centralize user-access and policies. I want to be able to take the rights of some users to use certain functions (such as the control panel) away. Also, we currently have a generic setup, each user using their office number "Station233" as their username. I want to get rid of this, and give each user his/her own unique username, and program their profiles into their usernames. Am I making sense? I guess I'm just looking for suggestions and guideance. I'm new to this domain/active directory configuration, so am just a little bit nervous about any possible setbacks. On a lighter note, I did setup a couple of extra systems on a test domain. I used a Windows Enterprise Evaluation copy, and added an XP client. Once I got past the login though, I called it quits for the day. I'm gonan dive back into it, tomorrow. I'd like to figure out a quick and easy way to get all this profile setup done. We have 20+ users, so spending 30 min. at each system is something I want to try and avoid. Quick and painless is the term I believe... :) Why do I feel silly for expecting this to be quick and painless. **Sighs** Any comments or suggestions anyone could offer would be great. Thanks!

Tommy, I'm not sure where to start but I will say I think you are on the right track and you do show signs of hope. However I'd suggest if you can, to take basic course in Windows 2000/2003 that would answer a lot of your questions. I'll try to answer a few of them... Roaming profiles would only make sense if your users sit at several different computers and want their desktop settings to 'follow' them from computer to computer. Most users don't need this because they use one pc, the same pc, all the time. If that's the case, forget about roaming profiles. Most admins don't implement them. Roaming profiles are not automatically created so there is nothing for you to disable. You don't move local accounts to the domain. You'll have to create a new user account in the domain for each user. But as you can tell, you only need one account and you will have the centralized management you are seeking. I would suggest usernames that are the names of the user. Typically this would be first initial last name or something like that. Joe Smith's username would be jsmith or something like that. If you feel silly for expecting this to be quick and painless, good. It won't be. You have a lot to learn but you have to start somewhere. I would caution that if this is a production environment, you might want to get some help. Setting up a Windows domain is not something you do without experience and an understanding of how things work. It's a bit complex. If it was easy, use admins would make the big bucks. ;) Good luck.

Glen, Thank you for your response! I guess my next question would be, what's the best method of migrating my users' current settings to work with the new accounts they'll be getting on the domain? Some users, have extensive address books and email databases within their outlook software. Most of our users have also customized the software we use, which has taken them some time to manipulate to their likings. I'd hate for them to lose all their personal documents and settings. Regards, Tommy Brents

The Outlook stuff is saved in their .pst file on their computer. You can still use that and maintain all email, contacts, etc. Just point Outlook to look at that .pst file. It's too much to explain here but you can copy their local profile to the profile of the domain account after the computer has joined the domain. In the Advanced Section of My Computer Properties is a User Profiles tab for this purpose. Do a search on copying User Profile and you should find plenty of info. If you get stuck let me know. I've done it a million times and what you are looking to do can be done relatively easily. Good luck.