Don't waste hours using time consuming profile migration tools when you can do it in minutes using a simple registry tweak. This technique can be used to migrate local profiles to domain profiles, as well as domain profiles to local profiles. It simply involves modifying a registry value and changing the permissions on the user directory. In my example, I will be migrating a local profile on Windows XP to a domain profile. This method has also been tested on Windows 7, however, if you are using Windows 7 (turn off UAC), please see the notes at the bottom.

 *** Windows 7 - Use this revised tutorial *** 

To begin, if you haven't ever logged in with the domain user account, you will need to do that first. The rest of the steps I recommend performing as a domain admin. Log out of the domain user's account and log in as a domain admin, open up Explorer, and browse to the Documents and Settings folder (Windows 7 would be the "Users" folder). Now right click on the local users profile and choose Properties. Click Add to add the domain user to the list of users with permissions. Now select Allow Full Control for the domain user and click Apply: