Thanks to anyone who may be of help to me on this issue! I have been frustrated for months on end now trying to find the correct method for moving user roaming profiles from one server to another and I’ve hit a brick wall every time I’ve tried to accomplish this task.
My environment is setup using (2) physical host servers, the old host server is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard (full GUI), and the new host server is running Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard (full GUI).
The hosts are setup as follows:
The new host 2012 R2 server current runs VM's that are all Windows 2012 R2 Standard Servers and the VMs are setup as follows:
VM#1) Primary AD server (DNS, WINS, DHCP)
VM#2) Backup AD server (DNS, other redundancy)
VM#3) WSUS & Symantec End Point Protection Server
VM#4) SQL Estimating and accounting software backend server, and shared data
VM#5) File and Data shared storage, server has the copied over private Users Profile Folders from the Old server/VM that currently has the user roaming profile folders on it, also has other misc. shared folders etc.
The old host 2008 R2 server runs only one VM currently, as I’ve moved all other VMs to the new host server without any issues. The only VM this old host runs is a Windows Server 2003 SP2 Standard server that holds the current copy of the private Users Profile Folders on it. Also I don't want to simply export and import the 2003 SP2 VM to the new host, as I feel this servers health is not in the best condition, and I prefer to dump 2003 and have all my VMs running the same OS (Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard).
All users desktop PC's are running Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit. After using several users as test dummies, I've come to the conclusion that moving the existing profile folders to a new server is much more complex process than my research has led me to believe. I have done endless research on Google, MS forums, Windows server forums etc. with no solid process producing results.
On my AD server I've changed the AD user settings, profile tab settings to the location of the new server for both the 'User profile, Profile path: and the 'Home folder, Connect: Drive - To folder’. I've used GPUpdate /Force at the desktops, I've Un-joined the PC from the Domain and re-joined it, I've deleted the local copy of the Profile (Roaming), I've renamed the existing profile folder on the old server, then get an error message saying can't load profile using temporary one, I've removed the registry entries on the PC that reference the profile list for this user and removed any .bak entries but then when I try to log on as this user it errors on the log in saying something such as the use profile entry is missing or corrupt etc. and returns to the log in screen.
I do notice that all throughout the registry on this PC the old server profile location is reference about a million times throughout the registry. So at this point I am through my hands up and say "any one that might be am to help I would greatly appreciated it"