New Network - Fresh Start - Logons etc.

[stu1892]

Morning all!

I am setting up a separate network from the original school network in a new building.

A very simple network, one box, a DC, Server 2008 R2 Std, 10 permanent users (as well as visiting students) and the traffic is completely disconnected with the school now.

What i'd like to know is what you do for user accounts / profiles / logon scripts etc. I'm new to Server 2008 so I'm a bit confused as to where to start and if there's any new features i can use.

Previously, we had the user, a redirected my documents folder (through AD home folder) and a redirected App Data (due to a large amount of settings, through GPO) as well as a logon script to map printers and a couple of network drives.
Happy to do this again, but don't want to go ahead and do it if there's a simpler way of doing things etc.

Cheers
Stu

PS - XP Clients, for now.

[Michael]

If you have many users, you have two choices. Either use the CSVDE command to export and import users, or you could create a trust between the two domains and migrate everything over using ADMT.

The easiest way would of been to add an existing DC to your domain and move everything over, however in your position, creating a trust and using ADMT to move Active Directory information would be the easiest method.

As for logon scripts, just copy these from one NETLOGON share to the other, then change the paths accordingly if the servername is different. You can use a GPO to deploy network drives, but your existing logon scripts should work absolutely fine. I'm sticking with logon scripts for XP, but then using Group Policy for Windows 7 network drives.

For profiles, re-create the Profiles$ share, then move profiles over. Make sure 'Everyone' has Full Control and that 'Administrators' are the owners, otherwise you'll get all kinds of weird and wonderful error messages at logon

[stu1892]

Thanks for the reply Michael.

No trusts, no data migration, completely fresh start for an entirely new department.

I'm looking for any new practices before i start copying anything across, idea or otherwise!