After years of using the roaming profile, I finally gave it up. It’s such a great idea that when it works, it works like a charm. But lately, I am getting more and more frustrated about how slow it takes to log off and log onto a computer. The convenience it brought me to joy has finally worn off.
But I still need to find an alternative solution to streamline the user profile setup when people switch computers. The manual process just won’t cut it.
If I don’t worry about the settings, such as Outlook profile, printer setup, etc, I can write a simple script in PowerShell to copy all necessary folders across computers. But most of the time, copying data is the easiest part while resetting all these settings takes much more time.
What I am looking for is a portal tool that can back up one or multiple user profiles from one computer and take that data and restore it up on another computer, much like cloning a user profile without a roaming profile.
Transwiz from ForensIT seems like a perfect fit.
It’s extremely easy to use and straightforward. It wraps up the selected profile into a standard zip archive and unpacks the archive on a different computer. It works like a charm, even better than what the roaming profile does. And best of all, it’s free of charge.
If you are looking for a large-scale user profile transfer, Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool (USMT might be a better fit.