Client PC migration fails from SBS 2003 to SBS 2012 Essentials

Question

Please check out this entire message before making an assumption about what it says, thanks.
Our old SBS 2003 Server hard failed a few weeks ago.
Rather than repair it, we ordered a new server with SBS 2012 Essentials and loaded the backup data from the old server.
The Server is just fine.  We are having no issues whatsoever with the server.  I kept the old domain name and server name.
The Client Computers, some Win7 some Win8.1, have turned into a nightmare to re-connect.
What happens is, the user can log in, but has no files in desktop, downloads or documents, nothing has been migrated:
The process I'm using is this:
  1> I take them off the old domain and set them up as workgroup: NOGROUP... that works fine.
  2> I bring up http://SERVERNAME/connect and begin installing the server software, no problem yet...
        >> This goes to a point where it asks for a restart, followed by a lot more waiting.
        >> Eventually it crashes with a message I have, unfortunately, not documented (sorry).
  3> When I restart the PC, I'm able to log into the user account : DOM\username, but none of the users files are there.
Looking at the file tree at C:\Users I see a folder structure like this:
  C:\Users
        |_   _client.setup_  (essentially empty)
        |_  username         (the old account... and yes, it has all of the files and app data)
        |_  username.DOM (the new account, but essentially empty)
It appears that the setup was supposed to migrate 'username' thru '_client.setup_ into 'username.DOM' but failed.
I can move all of the data from 'username' to 'username.DOM' to solve the data and files problem.
But the AppData folder cannot be moved in its entirety (I tried, and it clobbers the user completely), I have to manually transfer files from 'username\AppData' folders (Local, LocalLow and Roaming) making sure to transfer only the files that don't exist
in the 'username.DOM\Appdata' folders.
I realize that this process leaves me with a 'Less Than Perfect' AppData setup.
Since I have many Clients left to convert, I'd like to know if I'm doing something wrong, or how to make it right.

Answer 1

With a new server with a new domain you have started down the right path.  Disjoin and the http:// technique should have worked, but we can address that when you can give us more info.
When joining a new domain the old users profiles get blocked by security to the new users.  But the local admin or the domain admin should have access.  The way I do it is to copy out the required data from the old profile to a safe place then
copy it back to the new profile when finished.  But there are profile migration wizards, one of them at
www.forensit.com, that work very well.
As for the system crash when you did the join... please see if you can get the message, and then examine the logs in both the server and the client.   For the server, look here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2014/09/30/windows-server-essentials-log-files.aspx
For the client, scroll down in the link above to the section about client side logs.
Larry Struckmeyer[MVP] If your question is answered please mark the response as the answer so that others can benefit.