Identify Users

  • Article

This topic contains information that you should know while you plan how to migrate users. By default all users are migrated. For instructions on how to migrate users, see How To Migrate User Accounts.

  • Migrating local accounts
  • Migrating domain accounts
  • Command-line options

Note

You can only specify which users to include using the command line. You cannot specify users in the .xml files.

Migrating local accounts

Before migrating local accounts, note the following:

  • You must specify /lac. If you are migrating local accounts (as opposed to domain accounts) and if the local account does not exist on the destination computer, you must specify /lac on the LoadState command line. If /lac is not specified, any local user accounts will not be migrated.
  • Consider specifying /lae. This option enables the account that was created with /lac. You can create a disabled local account by only specifying /lac, but then a local administrator will need to enable the account on the destination computer.
  • You should be careful when specifying a password for local accounts. If you decide to create the local account with a blank password, anyone could log on to that account on the destination computer. If you decide to create the local account with a password, the password is available to anyone with access to the USMT command line.

Note

If there are multiple users on a computer and you specify a password with /lac, all migrated users will have the same password

Migrating domain accounts

Before migrating domain user accounts, note the following:

  • The destination computer does not need to be connected to the domain for domain user profiles to be created.
  • If USMT cannot determine a domain for a user, USMT will apply the settings to a local account. For example, if the computer is not part of a domain, if a server is down, or if there is a network communication error, then USMT will migrate the settings to a local account, which will appear as "Account Unknown" in User Profiles. Then, when the computer is connected to the network, the computer will connect to the naming server and get the account names and credentials back.

Note

When the destination computer is running Windows XP, you can use Moveuser.exe to move the local account back to the correct domain account after domain connectivity is restored. You can download Moveuser.exe by using the tools at Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=20334).

Command-line options

USMT provides several options that you can use to migrate multiple users on a single computer. You can use the following command-line options to specify which users to migrate.

  • Specifying users. You can specify which users to migrate with the /all, /ui, /uel, and /ue on both ScanState and LoadState command lines.
  • Moving users to new domains. You can move user accounts using the /md option on the LoadState command line.
  • Migrating local accounts. You can create and enable local accounts using /lac and /lae on the LoadState command line.
  • Renaming user accounts. You can rename user accounts using the /mu option.

Note

By default, if a user name is not specified in any of the command-line options, the user will be migrated.