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Migrate Windows users with User Profile Wizard


Karlston

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User Profile Wizard is a software for Microsoft Windows devices to migrate user accounts from one machine to another.

 

The program is offered as a free for personal-use version, and the paid professional edition and Enterprise edition.

 

The free edition supports the migration of user profiles, deleting or disabling local accounts, network migration, joining computers to all Windows domains, or joining a workgroup.

 

Professional and Enterprise editions support additional features; the professional version options to save migration configurations, adding computers to Active Directory Containers, or options to rename the profile folder or computer.

 

The Enterprise edition supports migration of all profiles in one operations, support for VPN connections, full automation with custom script support, and the renaming or copying of profiles.

 

In this review, I'll be looking at the free version of User Profile Wizard.

Migrate Windows users

user profile wizard migrate

 

User Profile Wizard is compatible with all versions of Windows starting with Windows XP. The program needs to be installed on the target machine before it can be used.

 

The main feature of the free version is to migrate a user profile to another account to keep data and preferences.

 

It displays the list of user profiles on start; each user profile is listed with its name and profile path. Options to show unassigned user profiles, and to disable or delete the selected account are provided. Unassigned profiles are profiles created by Windows when there are issues with existing profiles.

 

Note: The data is migrated to existing accounts only. If you want to start with a new profile, you need to create it first on the device to select it later.

 

You are asked to select an account name for the migration and need to select a domain or the local computer name. The program does not list existing account names on the system; you need to look them up elsewhere to pick the right account for the migration

 

migrate user profile

 

You may set the new profile as the default logon on the system.

 

The migration starts directly afterward. User Profile Wizard displays the progress in a log in the program interface; it may take some time to migrate Registry keys, user data, and other data to the selected profile.

 

migration

 

Attention: the program initiates a restart of the system after successful migration of a user profile. I did not find an option to prevent the restart from happening (after ten seconds). Make sure that you closed programs and saved data before you end the application.

Closing words

User Profile Wizard is a useful administrative Windows tool to migrate one user profile to another. Home users may use it to migrate data from an old profile to a new one among other things.

 

Source: Migrate Windows users with User Profile Wizard (gHacks - Martin Brinkmann)

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After 30 years in IT, im still in 2 minds about migrating profiles

 

Im still not convinced that its just a very quick but lazy method of managing user data

 

Id rather save all user data to a drive separate to the OS (whether separate drive (single user PC - like i do here or when i build a P for someone) or network drive (corp)), ive seen way too many times where you have to end up going through someones migrated profile to fix corruption/permissions, where the alternate method avoids all that nonsense. Its also little value to migrate program settings as they are usually overwritten when you reinstall the software anyways....and in any event i strongly view migrating a user registry form one machine to another as a really bad idea...

 

But then again, im also someone who has never upgraded Windows form one version to the other either, i like my life without complications....clean install, always, like a sane person, or install windows, drivers (and software if you like), and image it with Macrium.....then backup user data to another drive, when its time to reinstall, restore image, add software and copy user data back...its still quick....and far safer than profile copying

 

Yes, it can save you time, until it doesnt and then youre actually finding yourself spending more time than you thought you were saving to fix things....

 

Interestingly, heres a table of the increase size of a default user profile over the years, just for shits and giggles...and damn, Windows 10...i knew you were bloated, but...6 times larger than Windows 7?

 

OS Profile Size (MB)
Windows NT4 0.15
Windows 2000 7
Windows XP 11
Windows 7 20
Windows 8.1 61
Windows 10 123

 

 

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6 hours ago, stylemessiah said:

After 30 years in IT, im still in 2 minds about migrating profiles

 

Im still not convinced that its just a very quick but lazy method of managing user data

 

Id rather save all user data to a drive separate to the OS (whether separate drive (single user PC - like i do here or when i build a P for someone) or network drive (corp)), ive seen way too many times where you have to end up going through someones migrated profile to fix corruption/permissions, where the alternate method avoids all that nonsense. Its also little value to migrate program settings as they are usually overwritten when you reinstall the software anyways....and in any event i strongly view migrating a user registry form one machine to another as a really bad idea...

 

But then again, im also someone who has never upgraded Windows form one version to the other either, i like my life without complications....clean install, always, like a sane person, or install windows, drivers (and software if you like), and image it with Macrium.....then backup user data to another drive, when its time to reinstall, restore image, add software and copy user data back...its still quick....and far safer than profile copying

 

Yes, it can save you time, until it doesnt and then youre actually finding yourself spending more time than you thought you were saving to fix things....

 

Interestingly, heres a table of the increase size of a default user profile over the years, just for shits and giggles...and damn, Windows 10...i knew you were bloated, but...6 times larger than Windows 7?

 

OS Profile Size (MB)
Windows NT4 0.15
Windows 2000 7
Windows XP 11
Windows 7 20
Windows 8.1 61
Windows 10 123

 

 

 

In 25 years in IT, I believe you are correct. I've never tried the Pro version of this program but I stopped using the free version a few years ago after permission issues to file, to verifying Windows itself, I stopped migrating accounts this way. Now, it's a full backup to an external or separate drive in the system, full format, then I move the data over manually. Yes it takes more time, but I _never_ have issues with permissions or account verification.

I might purchase the Pro version to test it. Too bad there's no help with this one..

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Being that I run multi-boot systems with multiple versions of Windows, I wrote a batch script years ago to accomplish this sort of task. I also use ntfs junctions so that I don't waste SSD/HDD space unnecessarily (junctions are comparable to symbolic links in Linux, and helps avoid the duplication of data among other things).

 

Edit: I would share my batch script but its structure is rather personal and wouldn't really suit anyone else's needs without extreme modification. Sometimes people ask me why in the world I still use Windows XP, but I do use other OS too (sparingly) and managing profiles relates to that.

 

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