When a primary domain controller goes down and you do not have a BDC or a system state backup there is not a lot you can do to bring active directory & DNS back online cleanly. I searched and searched for a solution but found nothing. So I learned my lesson, always do a system state backup when completed with DC setup AND backup at regular intervals to ensure an easy recovery.
But since I did not do that, I had to go about it the hard way… reinstall DC and disjoin PC’s from old domain then join PC’s back into the newly set up domain. The trouble with that is keeping the user profiles active on the local machine without disrupting their settings & customizations. And I also don’t want user folders called c:\users\[DomainName].[UserName]… I just want c:\users\[UserName] to keep it clean. Luckily there are a few quick tools that Vista/Windows 7 provides to assist with that.
First there is the Windows Easy Transfer tool. Great tool for getting all of your desktop settings, Outlook accounts, background images, and you can customize the files you transfer. The wizard is very simple and allows for backup to disk, DVD, or external drive. Because I was not moving to another PC and I was not reinstalling the OS on these machines, I just backed up to a local folder.
Second I needed to log into the local machine administrator account and remove the user & their profile. A full restart will ensure that there is no locked files for this step. To remove the user go to Control Panel > User Accounts, then click Manage User Accounts. You can see a list of the users both local and domain here:
Click the user you want to remove, then click Remove. This only deletes the account, now we needed to delete the profile from the local computer. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Advanced [TAB] > User Profiles section. Click Settings. Click the user you want to delete the profile, click Delete.
Just to verify that the user profile directory was deleted go to C:\Users\. Delete the folder if left behind (typically only happens if a restart was not done after the first step).
Now you can rejoin the domain, add the user, and restore the settings using the same Windows Easy Transfer tool used before. With the exception of passwords not being saved (for very good reason) the user will have little or no impact.
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