What is the best way to migrate users and programs to Windows Server 2019?

Question

Windows Server

There is Windows Server 2019, it has several hundred users with installed software, a bunch of home folder settings, etc. + there are administrator settings (services, etc.). The task is to transfer this entire farce to another server running exactly the same OS.

You cannot use disk imaging.
You cannot use the net utilities (the servers are not network accessible to each other).

Is it possible to make something like a large archive that can be deployed on a second server so that all configs / users / programs are moved? If so, how?

Answer 1

Everything that you described is the whole system, Windows writes everything to the registry, you hesitate to pull everything out. Users have the same trouble, you can try to move the profile folder to another disk, for example, to a ball, but this does not work.
Why is the disk image impossible, there is no way to stop? There are shadow volume copy functions that will write the disk image to a file for you (directly making money) and after that you can roll it to another disk with a utility or restore it from under a working Windows.
I don't know if it can roll the registry over a clean system. But you can definitely make disk images and roll onto new hardware, of course, rushing with the drivers of the old system.

Answer 2

Backup / restore, even with built-in tools, even with third-party ones.

Answer 3

As far as I know, it is impossible to make a backup of the domain database and deploy it on another clean machine, but in theory you could prepare a copy of the system in advance (or raise a server with the backup role) and deploy backups from your main one on it, of course, these the systems don't need to be linked and yes, there will almost certainly be licensing issues, but that's a matter of experimentation.
https://habr.com/en/post/273093/
If you use a backup controller, then in theory your task becomes solvable, for example, you can use the backup controller as a way to transfer the configuration (by raising the server on a laptop, for example).