I had a Windows 7 laptop joined to an old domain that I needed to join to a new SBS 2008 domain. Following the advice in the MS Press book, Configuring Windows Small Business Server 2008, I planned to move the profile to a local user account, disjoin the domain, then use Connect Computer to activate the profile-ready local account on the SBS domain.
Unfortunately, I discovered that the option to Copy a profile is disabled (grayed out) under Windows 7. The workaround was to use a little program called Windows Enabler to un-gray the button so I could copy the profile. It’s all explained very well in this blog post.
The article also explains some risks with this method, and says that the only supported method for copying profiles is to use sysprep. Really? To copy one profile on one laptop I have to set up a full deployment lab? Maybe I could have used the Windows Easy Transfer Utility. Something to try next time.
Update: this laptop has been a bit unstable since the above procedure. Random hangs, can’t execute setspn -R command due to permissions (even though run as Administrator), strange Kerberos and DCOM errors on the server when it tries to talk to the laptop, owner for many files is a SID that no longer exists, etc. Looks like I’ll be flattening the computer and starting from scratch.