Duplication of User Profiles and Network Connections to multiple works

[roadhawk]

I am working on upgrading a complete network environment which is presently running WindowNT4.0 Advanced Server with 10 Windows 98 Second Edition workstations as clients. The actual system upgrade will be changing the WinNT40 to Win2003 and then upgrading each of the W98 workstations to WinXP Pro. This upgrade needs to be performed in a transparent and seamless manner as my client needs to the be up and running during the upgrading process. The client workstations are continually accessing resources, such as DBF and transaction files on the server.

My plan is to introduce a new machine loaded with Windows 2003 Enterprise Server with all the server apps onto the network and perform sychronization of the critical server resources between the WinNT and new Win2003. When I am ready to make the changeover, I will just apply the network mapped paths on the W98 clients to point to the 2003 server. Business as usual with the 2003 server in place.

Lastly, I will be upgrading the Win98 machines, reloading each one with WinXP Pro. This process will be performed over a period of 2 weeks. The issue I am attempting to resolve is during the transition period of upgrading the Win98's to XP, I will still need the Win98 client's operational. There are approximately 30 client users in this environment and I need to find a simple method of dulicating the user profiles and their new network connection paths from the first client I configure onto the remaining 29 clients. All clients need to be looking at the same server when the changeover is performed. I literally have just a few hours in which to accomplish this process.

Presently, all W98 clients are connectedm to the WinNT in a "workgroup" environment, after completion of the total changeover, all XP clients will become part of a "Domain" environment. However, during the transition period there will be a mix of W98 and XP clients and changing to a "Domain" configuration might upset the applecart.

My thought is to setup the first client machine by configuring the "all users" profile. I'm thinking that I could make this a mandatory profile, so that when each user logs on, he or she will be automatically be setup with the appropriate desktop, programs, and network connections.

Any suggestions would be welcome...