How do I move objects within my forest?

A. You can use the Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit’s Movetree utility to move organizational units (OUs), users, or computers between domains in a forest. This capability is useful for consolidating domains or to reflect organizational restructuring.

You can’t use Movetree to move certain objects, such as local and domain global groups. If you move the container that these objects are in, the utility places the objects in an orphan container in the source domain’s LostAndFound container.

Movetree also doesn’t move associated data, such as policies, profiles, logon scripts, and personal data. To move these items, use the Remote Administration Scripts tool to write custom scripts.

Movetree’s syntax is

movetree [/start | /continue | /check] [/s SrcDSA] [/d DstDSA] [/sdn SrcDN] [/ddn DstDN] [/u DomainUsername] [/p Password] [/quiet]

The following table explains each command

Run the Movetree utility in /check mode first, to perform a test without carrying out the action. You’ll see any errors that will occur, and the utility will write these errors to the file movetree.err in your current directory. If your test is OK, proceed with the /start option.

An example Movetree command is

movetree /check /s titanic.market.savilltech.com /d pluto.legal.savilltech.com /sdn OU=testing,DC=Market,DC=Savilltech,DC=COM /ddn OU=test2,DC=Legal,DC=Savilltech,DC=COM

This command would move the OU testing from the domain market.savilltech.com to the OU test2 in the domain legal.savilltech.com.