Cannot copy user profiles
We're testing Windows 7 RC 64 bit version. When attempting to copy a profile to the default user profile, the copy to button is grayed out. Machine has been rebooted numerous times.
May 13th, 2009 3:55pm

Hi JeffThis issue has been reported many times and we are still trying to get an official answer or find documentation about the problem.Thanks.Thank You for testing Windows 7 Ronnie Vernon MVP
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 13th, 2009 4:48pm

So there is no answer to this yet? How sad. MS just keeps giving enterprise customers reasons not toconsider at upgrading.
May 14th, 2009 9:29pm

When attempting to copy a profile to the default user profile, the copy to button is grayed out. A silly question: have You disabled UAC (and reboot) before trying to copy one profile to another one?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 14th, 2009 9:56pm

Hello Jeff,That scenario that was used to replace the Default User Profile was unsupported in Windows Vista and unsupported in Windows XP. There were many issues with it in the prior OSes, even though those issues were not always apparent, they did exist and caused inconsistencies and lingering problems.Thisarticle points to the supported way of updating the Default User profile959753How to customize the default local user profile when you prepare an image of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;959753Thanks, Darrell Gorter[MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
May 15th, 2009 2:00am

Hello Jeff,That scenario that was used to replace the Default User Profile was unsupported in Windows Vista and unsupported in Windows XP. There were many issues with it in the prior OSes, even though those issues were not always apparent, they did exist and caused inconsistencies and lingering problems.Thisarticle points to the supported way of updating the Default User profile959753How to customize the default local user profile when you prepare an image of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;959753 Thanks, Darrell Gorter[MSFT] This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights The fact is the option worked. I've been using it since Windows 2000 (which definately had problems) but have NEVER had a problem saving the Default User Profile that way under XP. You can quote the same KB article (that you have been for years), instead of providing any useful information. If it was not supported the option should have been removed. Explain to me. I have over 3000 users. When I make a change to the computer I want to save the default user profile so that anyone that logs in gets that profile. Under your scenario I would have to login to each computer with each user ID, and make the changes for that user. UsingSysprep is idiotic as you would have to go throught the intial setup process again everytime you made a change.Vista & 7 were designed for home users and MS has abandoned the enterprise. Guess What? The enterprise is abandoning MS because there is absolutely no reason to upgrade to their "Home" products.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 19th, 2009 5:17pm

Please Tell me this is a BUG?I am a network Administrator. I use the Profiles tab ALL the TIME to create Roaming Profiles because I use Mandatory Roaming Profiles.To make a roaming profile you need to go to the Users Profile tab in the properties of Computer.Find the profile and choose "Copy to"In Windows 7the "Copy To"is GREYED OUT forEVERYUSER except the Default Profile. I have tried a Local User (regular) and two different domain users (regular). I have logged in as both Domain Admin and Regular Admin.Machine has been restarted sothe profilesare no longer loaded in the registry andI CAN deletethem (Delete option is Available). However, I just can't "copy to"using profile tab.I havelogged in as a Local Administrator (yes I enabled it) and also a Domain Administrator. Both have the greyed out "copy to" button. It is not a permissions issue.It is available this way in Vista as I have done it per these Microsoft Instructions.http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766489(WS.10).aspxhttp://i.technet.microsoft.com/cc766489.1265e2ad-1570-406a-b107-6cbabe413b0c(en-us).gifCreate a Default Network User Profile Log on to a computer running Windows Vista with any domain user account. Do not use a domain administrator account. Configure user settings such as background colors and screen savers to meet your company standard. Log off the computer. Log on to the computer used in step 1 with a domain administrator account. Use the Run command to connect to the Netlogon share of a domain controller. For Example, the path used in the contoso.com domain looks like \\HQ-CON-SRV-01\NETLOGON Create a new folder in the Netlogon share and name it Default User.v2. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties. Click Advanced System Settings. Under User Profiles, click Settings. The User Profiles dialog box shows a list of profiles stored on the computer. Click the name of the user you used in step 1. Click Copy To. In the Copy To dialog box, type the network path to the Windows Vista default user folder you created in step 5 in the Copy profile to text box. For example, the network path in the contoso.com domain is \\HQ-CON-SRV-01\NETLOGON \Default User.v2. In Permitted to use, click Change. Type the name Everyone,and then click OK. Click OK to start copying the profile. Close all remaining windows and log off the computer when the copying process is completelforbes
May 20th, 2009 1:54am

The fact is the option worked. I've been using it since Windows 2000 (which definately had problems) but have NEVER had a problem saving the Default User Profile that way under XP. You can quote the same KB article (that you have been for years), instead of providing any useful information. If it was not supported the option should have been removed. Explain to me. I have over 3000 users. When I make a change to the computer I want to save the default user profile so that anyone that logs in gets that profile. Under your scenario I would have to login to each computer with each user ID, and make the changes for that user. UsingSysprep is idiotic as you would have to go throught the intial setup process again everytime you made a change.Vista & 7 were designed for home users and MS has abandoned the enterprise. Guess What? The enterprise is abandoning MS because there is absolutely no reason to upgrade to their "Home" products. You know I feel EXACTLY the same way. Microsoft is totally designing their Operating Systems for the Home User and are losing business supportfast. Once XP becomes obsolete I am pretty sure many will be switching to a different Non-MS OS.We have had SO many issues trying to launch Vista in a Domain Environment. I have managed to HACK the registry to show the My Documents back on the desktop but Come-On why would Microsoft take it away in the first place? Users can't save to their Profile folders in my network.The Libraries were designed ENTIRELY for home users. Cool idea if they applied to a domain environment.Now not being able to copy the local profile is RIDICULOUS. How am I suppose to create my Windows7 Mandatory Roaming Profiles?I tried to copy manually but there must be something in there that changes ownership of the profile inside the profile itself because the copy wouldn't work with another user.Microsoft NEEDS to go back to designing one OS for Home and another OS for a Business environment because forcing the home version down business' throats isn't going to work for us.lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 20th, 2009 2:03am

Hello Folks, hello MS,I also tried to create an own default user profile - with no luck. The field where I might copy the profile is also greyed out (W7 RC1, german).In summary to all posts here: this is a must have!Without this feature, I never ever will update any XP stations of our customers - the default-Profile with its strange energy-settings and other gimmicks is still useless.Will this be maintained as "by behavior" or will this be fixed?Again: without this feature, none of our customers will ever see any Windows 7 client. I will change to linux, if the Vista-drama will be continued, I really give it up.We have lots of customers (1 to 300 Users) and we need to create different default profiles for domain and for local usage (external notebooks and so on). Up to XP/Vista the easiest way was to create a new local default profile before any machine was joined to a domain, thus we had the same user-experience on local and on domain machines. Very comfortable and we rarely had problems. With Vista there were some issues (some registry entries were not changed), but with many others, we ommit Vista.How to fix it?
May 20th, 2009 4:45pm

I did it now with a hint from another guy: "I got this to work, but it's no where near as elegant as with XP and Vista via the User Profile "copy to" method above:Customize a user profile as neededGo to Control Panel and create a new dummy admininstratorReboot, log in as the dummy adminBrowse to C: and go into theFolder settings and Show all hidden/system filesBrowse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the Default folder to make a second (backup) copy of itBrowse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the customized user profileto make asecond copy of itSHIFT-DEL the original Default folderRename the customized folder copy to DefaultCreate a new dummy admin and reboot/log into test itI've nottested this extensively yet but this seemed to workwith the exception that the desktop background pic was gone leavinga black background. I fixed this easily by re-selecting the correct background pic.I really hope that MS restores the previous method as this seems very sketchy to me and I'd hate to have to use this in a production environment."It seems to work, but the registry-entry for shell folders are - as with vista and w2008 - also wrong. All shell folders entries have the paths from the initial user. I can fix it with a script, this is ok.But I don't understand, why the traditional way of preparing new profiles is greyed out.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 22nd, 2009 12:23pm

I did it now with a hint from another guy: "I got this to work, but it's no where near as elegant as with XP and Vista via the User Profile "copy to" method above:Customize a user profile as neededGo to Control Panel and create a new dummy admininstratorReboot, log in as the dummy adminBrowse to C: and go into theFolder settings and Show all hidden/system filesBrowse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the Default folder to make a second (backup) copy of itBrowse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the customized user profileto make asecond copy of itSHIFT-DEL the original Default folderRename the customized folder copy to DefaultCreate a new dummy admin and reboot/log into test itI've nottested this extensively yet but this seemed to workwith the exception that the desktop background pic was gone leavinga black background. I fixed this easily by re-selecting the correct background pic.I really hope that MS restores the previous method as this seems very sketchy to me and I'd hate to have to use this in a production environment."It seems to work, but the registry-entry for shell folders are - as with vista and w2008 - also wrong. All shell folders entries have the paths from the initial user. I can fix it with a script, this is ok.But I don't understand, why the traditional way of preparing new profiles is greyed out. Copying the profile, copies the user security settings so no it won't work properly unless you go into the regstry and reset the permissions on the key to everyone=full control. Also you have to remove any user specific settings.The Default User in Windows 7 is also quite unique than a users profile too. It contains quitea few links to all the "hidden" stuff that is there to support Windows XP (application data, My Documents etc).Cheers,Laralforbes
May 23rd, 2009 9:29am

Hi guys, the only sure fired way I have come across so far is to use copy profilein unattended.xml. Log on as the user you want to set up the default profile as, set up everything as you want, then still logged in as that user run sysprep and thank you very much all done. Having said that having to learn how to use Windows System image manager(I think thats what it is called) is time consuming but it is the only way so far.If you have already used WSIM with Vista you laughing, takes less than 5 min. Perhaps things may change with the final release? It was definetly handy to be able to copy the profile at times. H.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 25th, 2009 12:47am

Hey all- I totally agree- this feature is a MUST HAVE for our organization.WE MUST HAVE THE COPY TOability back as in XP, or we'll NEVER upgrade to Win7.This is one reason we totally skipped Vista. We have over 30 different images at our school, and we cannot sysprep everytime we want to modify the default profile. We unfreeze the systems, make our modifications, copy to default user, and then we're done. THERE'S NO WAY we'd reimage or run sysprep for every time we have to make a minor change. You guys have got to find a way to make it work!!!!!!!!
May 28th, 2009 7:55pm

Hello all,I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced.Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios.If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as wellDarrellg@online.microsoft.comremove the online from the address to send to me Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often? What types of customizations areyou doing? What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? Why is sysprep inadequate for this?Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 9th, 2009 4:40am

Hello, I'm the one that originally started this thread. Although I have seen many others similiar to it since starting it. Anyways in response to this comment:Hi guys, the only sure fired way I have come across so far is to use copy profilein unattended.xml. Log on as the user you want to set up the default profile as, set up everything as you want, then still logged in as that user run sysprep and thank you very much all done. Having said that having to learn how to use Windows System image manager(I think thats what it is called) is time consuming but it is the only way so far.If you have already used WSIM with Vista you laughing, takes less than 5 min. Perhaps things may change with the final release? It was definetly handy to be able to copy the profile at times. H.I had read other articles as well that indicated this was the way to go. I was very optimistic, however I tried yesterday and could not get it to work. I thought perhaps it was a bug with Windows 7. I then tried with Vista, and again it did not work. Now it certainly is possible I could be doing something wrong. However I read numerous threads and articles yesterday indicating this method does not always work. This one is the most eye opening, and I must say I found to be true wiithy my testing:http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-windows-vista-administration-accounts-passwords/302819-how-make-standard-profile-w-default-user.htmlWhat else is also frustrating is this, the majority of businesses did not go with Vista. XP was a good OS, and still is. Now when you try learning about Windows 7, such as through Videos, articles etc; you constantly here, those of you who upgraded to Vista, will have no problem upgrading to Windows 7 since they are so similiar, and the way to deploy are similiar.To my knowledge many orginazations did not upgrade to Vista. So if Microsoft wants businesses to upgrade to Windows 7, they have to do a much better job in educating their customers on how to upgrade from XP to Windows 7. Hey WDS is good stuff, WAIK as well, but please explain from A to Z how the 2 work with Windows 7 in one lab or article. No half explanation, with referneces to Vista that actually don't work.JD
June 16th, 2009 3:54pm

Hello all,I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced.Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios.If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as wellDarrellg@online.microsoft.comremove the online from the address to send to me Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often? What types of customizations areyou doing? What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights I don't touch the Default Profile in my Domain. However, I use mandatory roaming profiles where 1 profile is assigned to 2500 users. Therefore without the ability to copy the profile I cannot create a mandatory roaming profile.You MUST be kidding about Sysprep? I change my mandatory profiles on a regular basis and I have about 20 of them. How exactly would I use Sysprep for this?Please STOP taking away functionality Microsoft. We are not idiots that need to be saved.lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 17th, 2009 3:53am

Hello, I'm the one that originally started this thread. Although I have seen many others similiar to it since starting it. Anyways in response to this comment:Hi guys, the only sure fired way I have come across so far is to use copy profilein unattended.xml. Log on as the user you want to set up the default profile as, set up everything as you want, then still logged in as that user run sysprep and thank you very much all done. Having said that having to learn how to use Windows System image manager(I think thats what it is called) is time consuming but it is the only way so far.If you have already used WSIM with Vista you laughing, takes less than 5 min. Perhaps things may change with the final release? It was definetly handy to be able to copy the profile at times. H.I had read other articles as well that indicated this was the way to go. I was very optimistic, however I tried yesterday and could not get it to work. I thought perhaps it was a bug with Windows 7. I then tried with Vista, and again it did not work. Now it certainly is possible I could be doing something wrong. However I read numerous threads and articles yesterday indicating this method does not always work. This one is the most eye opening, and I must say I found to be true wiithy my testing:http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-windows-vista-administration-accounts-passwords/302819-how-make-standard-profile-w-default-user.htmlWhat else is also frustrating is this, the majority of businesses did not go with Vista. XP was a good OS, and still is. Now when you try learning about Windows 7, such as through Videos, articles etc; you constantly here, those of you who upgraded to Vista, will have no problem upgrading to Windows 7 since they are so similiar, and the way to deploy are similiar.To my knowledge many orginazations did not upgrade to Vista. So if Microsoft wants businesses to upgrade to Windows 7, they have to do a much better job in educating their customers on how to upgrade from XP to Windows 7. Hey WDS is good stuff, WAIK as well, but please explain from A to Z how the 2 work with Windows 7 in one lab or article. No half explanation, with referneces to Vista that actually don't work.JD JD you can copy the profiles manually for mandatory profiles (haven't tested for Default User as I don't change mine). Just copy the profile you created to a new folder. Run regedit, load the profile into regedit, go to the Permissions and add Everyone = Full Control and remove the regular user. Unload the hive.I have detailed instructions here http://www.sd61.bc.ca/windows2000/VistaWin7/Profiles.htmlI did get it to work and now have Windows 7 Mandatory profiles in my domain.Cheers,Laralforbes
June 17th, 2009 3:56am

Hi Jeff,The current workaround that I can think of is to download and use MDT 2010 beta.Deploy Windows 7 x64 to the target PC.Configure and install any software for your custom image.Sysprep your target PC with the userid you want to use as the default profile (after applying settings you wish).Capture the image back to the server (imagex /compress fast /flags "Ultimate" /capture d: z:\wimname.wim "description")Create your new custom OS and task sequence.Edit the unattend.xmlin the custom task sequence and apply following:Pass 4 specialize, amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral, set "CopyProfile" to "true".This willl apply the profile settings of the user id used to sysprep the PC to all users that logon to the target PC.Hope that helps.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 17th, 2009 6:02pm

I also tried copying profiles manually using drag and drop once Windows created the profile folders. Manually copying profiles causes VERY STRANGE things to happen when applying Group Policies to the user that received that copied profile. I found that you have to create the template User Profile as a local one, and then logging in as another user (with admin privs), use the user profile copy utility behind My Computer to copy it to the default location or to a new user. I haven't yet figured out if there is a way to copy a domain profile. Like everyone said, the copy button is greyed if you try to copy anything not local.
July 3rd, 2009 11:13pm

I also tried copying profiles manually using drag and drop once Windows created the profile folders. Manually copying profiles causes VERY STRANGE things to happen when applying Group Policies to the user that received that copied profile. I found that you have to create the template User Profile as a local one, and then logging in as another user (with admin privs), use the user profile copy utility behind My Computer to copy it to the default location or to a new user. I haven't yet figured out if there is a way to copy a domain profile. Like everyone said, the copy button is greyed if you try to copy anything not local.I really wish that Msoft would release a util that would allow copying of anyone's profile (local or domain) to anywhere. Hi,Did you change the permissions in the registry of ntuser.dat? Also did you delete all the .ini files?If you do that it works although I use mandatory roaming profiles.I still am hoping this is one "bug" that they fix with the Release. It is absolutely ridiculous that the copy button is greyed out. Again a big sign that Microsoft did not design Windows 7 for business and only for home users.Cheers,Laralforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 3rd, 2009 11:43pm

I just was able to get the COPY button ungrayed. The key here is that after you create and customize the template user profile (the one that you're going to copy) while logged into the domain as that user, you have to REBOOT THE WORKSTATION COMPUTER before logging in as an admin to do the copying. Logging out, and logging in as an admin doesn't do it. You have to REBOOT. In summary, I created a new domain user in Active Directory Users and Computers. I did not change the default settings for where this user's profile would be stored. I logged into the domain as this new user on a workstation. I customized the profile (desktop settings, icons, wallpaper, etc). I then REBOOTED THE WORKSTATION. On that same workstation, I logged in as an administrator, right clicked on My Computer, selected Advanced, and User Profiles. I then highlighted the Domain\username profile that I just customized and wanted to copy, and hit the Copy button. This button was not grayed out anymore. I then copied the profile to the \\domaincontrollername \netlogon\Default User directory. The actual profile files and folders (Application Data, desktop, Favorites, etc) sit inside the Default User folder (\sysvol\sysvol\yourdomainname \scripts\Default User\theprofilefiles ) (the italicized pieces will be changed to match your setup). FYI, on my system, this Default Users folder has Full Control privs for sharing, and Full Control NTFS privs for Everyone, Domainname \administrator and System. Again, the two key things that I've learned is that you can't copy a user profile if you're logged in as that user, and you have to reboot the computer between logging in as that user, and logging in as the administrator to do the copying. Rog
July 4th, 2009 12:29am

I just was able to get the COPY button ungrayed. The key here is that after you create and customize the template user profile (the one that you're going to copy) while logged into the domain as that user, you have to REBOOT THE WORKSTATION COMPUTER before logging in as an admin to do the copying. Logging out, and logging in as an admin doesn't do it. You have to REBOOT.In summary, I created a new domain user in Active Directory Users and Computers. I did not change the default settings for where this user's profile would be stored.I logged into the domain as this new user on a workstation. I customized the profile (desktop settings, icons, wallpaper, etc). I then REBOOTED THE WORKSTATION. On that same workstation, I logged in as an administrator, right clicked on My Computer, selected Advanced, and User Profiles.I then highlighted the Domain\username profile that I just customized and wanted to copy, and hit the Copy button. This button was not grayed out anymore.I then copied the profile to the \\domaincontrollername \netlogon\Default User directory. The actual profile files and folders (Application Data, desktop, Favorites, etc) sit inside the Default User folder (\sysvol\sysvol\yourdomainname \scripts\Default User\theprofilefiles ) (the italicized pieces will be changed to match your setup).FYI, on my system, this Default Users folder has Full Control privs for sharing, and Full Control NTFS privs for Everyone, Domainname \administrator and System.Again, the two key things that I've learned is that you can't copy a user profile if you're logged in as that user, and you have to reboot the computer between logging in as that user, and logging in as the administrator to do the copying.Rog Hi,This is interesting. My Windows 7 computer has been rebooted about 50 times and uninstalled and reinstalled from the domain and the copy button is STILL greyed out for all users except the "default" user. However, the delete button isn't grey therefore the user profile is no longer loaded in the registry (HKUsers).It doesn't matter if it is a domain user or a regular user or whether I am logged in as an local admin or a domain admin.Also I have taken full-control of ALL the C:\ and the registry and set back to XP permissions so it isn't a permissions issue.Now I have not patched this machine as I have a WSUS server where Windows 7 updates aren't included yet. I am wondering if MS has released a patch for this?lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 4th, 2009 12:59am

Nope Roger still no success. I had tried that prior to starting this thread, and did again just to confirm. I'm trying to set up a local default profile, not a default roaming profile. Hopefully Microsoft will get this figured out.Jeff
July 6th, 2009 5:22pm

I work in education. I have almost 4000 users. During the course of a day up to 20 different students could log on to a pc. There may be hundreds of profiles stored on the pc. When I add a program or make a change I need to copy the default user profile so that everyone that logs onto that computer gets the same profile, ie: desktops, icons, applications, printers and so on. Copy an icon to hundreds is profiles is out of the question. Using a script or batch file is out of the question because of the number of different users that may be on a particular machine. A lot of the software companies (especially newer Adobe software) love to keep their licensing, registration and other information of the user profile that installed the program. Not being able to copy the default user profile means those settings are not passed from user to user. You have to run the registration and licensing options when every user logs in. I login with an admin account, customize the pc the way I want, shut it down, power it back on and login with another admin account and save the default user profile. The next person that logs on, and I don't care who it is, gets the customizations I set and because of Group Policy settings cannot change them.SYSPREP is totally innappropriate for this. You want me to run SYSPREP everytime I make a change so that I can save the Default User Profile? You do know what SYSPREP does to a system don't you? And the time that would be involved in doing a single lab of 30 computers? Using SYSPREP is completely rediculous.Why is there a need to update computers so often? Try getting 400 teachers to agree on anything let alone what software they want to use.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 24th, 2009 7:55pm

I agree completely with you Jeff and my experiences have been pretty much the same. Using WSIM & SYSPREP in Vista and Windows 7 has been hit an miss for me also. Mostly miss. And you are correct, there is no good documentation from Microsoft or anyone else on the subject.
July 24th, 2009 7:58pm

This doesn't work for me. I ALWAYS power the computer off after making changes and power it back on before logging in with an administrator account to save the profile. The button is still grayed out for me.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 24th, 2009 8:01pm

Hello all, I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced. Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios. If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as well Darrellg@online.microsoft.com remove the online from the address to send to me Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often? What types of customizations areyou doing? What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights First off as a disclaimer, I'm saying this as myself, not on behalf of the company I work for. This is just my own personal opinion Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often? After setting it up initially, there's not much need to update the profile. But if something changed, such as the path to a network volume that gets mapped for the default user, it'd be nice to be able to update the user profile to reflect that change. Ideally this should be done through GPO I think, but read on for some comments about GPO stuff. What types of customizations areyou doing? Default Printers, desktop shortcuts, browser preferences, application settings. With XP, we have a different profile for each department. We install XP on a machine and then have a script which installs department-specific software and settings. Yes, some of these things can be put in the Public/All Users folders but if 1 user deletes a desktop icon it's deleted for everyone else and creates an inconsistent desktop experience. What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? To be honest, I have no idea what the difference is and never considered the "types" of profiles. Why is sysprep inadequate for this? I'm pretty sure this can be summed up in one word for me: Simplicity! In small (as in 10-man) companies, IT work can often fall to "that guy who knows the computer stuff but gets paid to do something completely unrelated". That's certainly where I got my roots. Sysprep is complicated to the uninitiated, setting up GPOs doesn't solve everything (application-specific settings) and is complicated in that working with GPOs is an extra layer of abstraction when you're trying to sculpt out and visualize a user's desktop experience. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, we have a profile for each department. With XP we have a script that selects the appropriate profile, copies it off the network and replaces the Default User. It's part of our standard steps to deploy a computer. With Win7 now we have to make multiple .wim files each with small differences for each department. It's easier after the initial creation I suppose, but just getting that first part going is tough. The people I work with know how to setup and support machines, and that includes setting up a Default User profile by copying to the correct directory. But not everyone understands sysprep or can afford the time and attention to learn it - It's creating a requirement to have more "specialists" where a "jack of all trades" used to work just fine. The second reason why sysprep is inadequete: The documentation. Existing information on setting up the Default User in Vista/Win7 is vague - There's no step-by-step guide that clearly defines how to do it. Most documentation just mentions "use the CopyProfile flag in an xml file" - to the inexperienced that's NOT enough information. What XML file? Where does it come from? What's step 1? Where is an example? The highlight of my month was last week when I got the Default User profile to copy and stick. It just shouldn't be something that feels like such an accomplishment. There needs to be something like the checklist at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349348%28WS.10%29.aspx but even that one has 3 reported bugs (to be fair, I reported 2 of them and maybe it's me that's the problem). A straight-forward by-the-numbers explanation of setting the Default Profile would probably make a lot of people happy. I tried and posted my steps elsewhere in the forums but I don't think I did it justice and it's certainly not the most efficient way. My last complaint is that with XP it's nice to log on as the local Administrator and have that profile set up differently - shortcuts to network shares of IT resources, bookmarks for our help manual of the little things we're constantly forgetting exactly how to do and checklists for deployment. This is only a small inconvenience compared to the simplicity thing though. To speak frankly.... I work in the Helpdesk of what Microsoft probably considers a "medium" sized business. With all the stuff going on in our office, getting changes made to GPOs requires a lot of bureaucracy, whining, time and knowledge that I personally don't have. Using Default Templates gets the job done directly and in a way that I can support. So while I'm confident there are ways around this new Default Profile stuff with Vista/Win7, the counter-intuitive-ness of "doing it the Microsoft way" is kind of a hindrance and feels like a step backwards compared to most of the great improvements of Win7. Whatever bugs are associated with just copying over the default profile in XP, I never saw them - If I did, maybe I'd understand and sympathize more with this new way of doing things. Sorry this response is so lengthy and over a month late, and despite all my complaining, none of this seems like issues that can't be addressed over time or worked around. Thank you to everyone in this thread in general for the community support.
July 25th, 2009 8:16am

Microsoft, you're killing me here. I was hoping that some of the ridiculousness of Vista would not be carried over to Windows 7 but it looks like it has. I agree with most of the sentiment here: Stop designing your desktop OS for the home user, or at least give us a 'power users' version which can be easily managed in the Enterprise. Give us back the 'Copy To' feature for user profiles. I have been using this for years and for me it is a MUST HAVE. Using Sysprep for what we use it for is like using a hammer when tweezers are what the job calls for. I am the IT director for my company and I have outlawed Vista because its not designed for the enterprise and honestly its just a disaster of an OS. If Micrsoft doesn't fix some of these things in Win7 then I'm sure that I will take the same path with it and we'll just stick with XP until MS stops supporting/patching it. At that point we'll probably move to something else entirely such as Linux. Microsoft, you are shooting yourselves in the foot and alienating your own best advocates, MCP's. Way to go.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 15th, 2009 5:11am

This is so frustrating to work with. I'm beginning to regret getting involved with Win 7 deployment specifically because of this issue. The CopyProfile entry in the unattend file is completely inconsistent and the default profile workarounds often leave you worse than when you started.
August 18th, 2009 3:59am

This is so frustrating to work with. I'm beginning to regret getting involved with Win 7 deployment specifically because of this issue. The CopyProfile entry in the unattend file is completely inconsistent and the default profile workarounds often leave you worse than when you started. I totally agree. We won't be going to Windows 7 until this is fixed. Actually it is NOT for the reason that we want to create a new default user. We just want to create Mandatory Roaming Profiles for about 100 users and I certainly am NOT going to run Sysprep every time.I was hoping this was a bug that was fixed with the RTM but I don't have a copy of the RTM in order to test it.lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 19th, 2009 4:15am

I can tell you, the "problem" still exists in RTM.
August 19th, 2009 9:41pm

I can tell you, the "problem" still exists in RTM.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 19th, 2009 9:41pm

This thread has been going for 6 months and no answers or other options have been presented for such a simple request. How hard is it to enable this feature in the OS for the IT staff that have to support and deploy this OS? Instead of more wallpapers can we get this fixed or give us a way to do this without having to mess around with WAIK.
August 20th, 2009 1:49am

Great, well MS just lost some more sales. We will stay with XP and when we are forced to change we will go with Linux. MS just keeps getting more narrow minded all the time. They keep going backwards.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 20th, 2009 2:45pm

Has anyone tried this? I haven't had a chance and it will be awhile before I can test Windows 7 again.Logon as a user and set the profile.Logon as AdministratorGo to C:\Users and RENAME Default to DefaultKeep.Rename user profile above to DEFAULT.Logoff and back on again as an Administrator (or restart if necessary).Go into the System Profiles and select "Default" and choose "Copy Profile". It allows you to copy the default one. Set the permissions to "everyone" and copy to a network share.Go back in and rename the Default one back to users name and then copy the Network Share created and call it "Default" or use the network one for setting up mandatory roaming profiles like I do.Anyway I am thinking this may work. The other option is to see if it lets you copy domain roaming profiles that are not set to be deleted on logoff.Cheers,Laralforbes
August 21st, 2009 6:05am

When attempting to copy a profile to the default user profile, the copy to button is grayed out. A silly question: have You disabled UAC (and reboot) before trying to copy one profile to another one? I have disabled UAC permanentlyAND Set all the permissions back to XP permissions on the drive and registry. It is not a permissions issue.lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 21st, 2009 6:07am

Hey all,I believe I have a solution!I just tested it, and it seems to work perfectly.:)1. Download a little freeware program called "Windows Enabler 1.1" (Google it, and download it).(It's a handy little portable utility I keep on my thumb drive and network utilities folder. All you need is the "Windows Enabler.exe" and "EnablerDLL.dll" together in a folder.)2. Run Windows Enabler on the Windows 7 machine, and a little blue & white icon will show up in your system tray.3. Bring up the "Users Profile" window, and select the profile you wish to copy where the button is grayed out.4. Click on the Windows Enabler icon in your system tray, and it should say "On"5. Click once on the "Copy To" button, and it should un-gray the button. Click the Windows Enabler icon again to turn it off.6. Now, you have your Copy To button working! Copy the user profiles as you normally would, and try logging in as a new user on the machine.I tested it, and it appears fully functional. I was able to copy a profile, and log in with a new user, and everything looks good so far! :D Windows Enabler is a great little utility to add to your collection :)Hope that helps!
August 21st, 2009 7:48pm

Hey all,I believe I have a solution!I just tested it, and it seems to work perfectly.:)1. Download a little freeware program called "Windows Enabler 1.1" (Google it, and download it).(It's a handy little portable utility I keep on my thumb drive and network utilities folder. All you need is the "Windows Enabler.exe" and "EnablerDLL.dll" together in a folder.)2. Run Windows Enabler on the Windows 7 machine, and a little blue & white icon will show up in your system tray.3. Bring up the "Users Profile" window, and select the profile you wish to copy where the button is grayed out.4. Click on the Windows Enabler icon in your system tray, and it should say "On"5. Click once on the "Copy To" button, and it should un-gray the button. Click the Windows Enabler icon again to turn it off.6. Now, you have your Copy To button working! Copy the user profiles as you normally would, and try logging in as a new user on the machine.I tested it, and it appears fully functional. I was able to copy a profile, and log in with a new user, and everything looks good so far! :D Windows Enabler is a great little utility to add to your collection :)Hope that helps! This worked for me. Took me a few tries to get to actually enable, but worked fine. Program seems safe to me. I ran Symantec Endpoint 11 on the files and seemed fine. Had issues download the zip file, because there were no file extensions listed on the zip file. Other than that this is a perfectly good work around until Microsoft gets their act together.@Imfusio Thanks!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 21st, 2009 10:08pm

I followed Imfusio's steps, and they worked for me too. I'm stunned that a utility from several years ago worked like this. But I'll take this desperately needed solution. Double thanks, Infusio!
August 22nd, 2009 10:33pm

Hey all,I believe I have a solution!I just tested it, and it seems to work perfectly.:)1. Download a little freeware program called "Windows Enabler 1.1" (Google it, and download it).(It's a handy little portable utility I keep on my thumb drive and network utilities folder. All you need is the "Windows Enabler.exe" and "EnablerDLL.dll" together in a folder.)2. Run Windows Enabler on the Windows 7 machine, and a little blue & white icon will show up in your system tray.3. Bring up the "Users Profile" window, and select the profile you wish to copy where the button is grayed out.4. Click on the Windows Enabler icon in your system tray, and it should say "On"5. Click once on the "Copy To" button, and it should un-gray the button. Click the Windows Enabler icon again to turn it off.6. Now, you have your Copy To button working! Copy the user profiles as you normally would, and try logging in as a new user on the machine.I tested it, and it appears fully functional. I was able to copy a profile, and log in with a new user, and everything looks good so far! :D Windows Enabler is a great little utility to add to your collection :)Hope that helps! Imfusio - Thanks for the info andWindows Enablerworked for me as well!!! However, I did run into a few issues that maybe other users will have ideas on how to resolve: 1. Wallpaper is missing, desktop is black. 2. I cannot use a domain account as the template for my new default profile. Group Policy redirects My Docs and other user folders and Windows complains about the paths when a new user logs on. I used a local account and copied that profile as a workaround.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 23rd, 2009 1:20am

Oh dearI just ran into this issue doing initial testing of Win7 RTM. It sucks, frankly.As it dawned on me from reading around various blog posts on this issue,it was a genuine "WTF" moment. The rationale from MS would seem to be "we dont want you copying user profiles over the default user profile anymore, so we've taken away the ability for you to copy any user profile in the UI, because you've all been naughty children"Actually i dont want to copy a user profile over the default profile. I just want to copysome local profiles aroundover some other local profiles while I'm doingtesting and doman planing. Dont ask why... it really doesnt matter. What matters is that I'm prohibited from doing it for no real reason. And I really dont like that. So, my testing stops.If there is any good reason for this,.. it would seem that the code thats requiredfor windows tosatisfactorily copy a user profile, (incling the myriad of junction points that are also there for compatibility),.... it doesnt exist in theOS. I tried all the manual workarounds given in this thread, and all of them result in profilesthat dont work properly.I thought that the method of manually copying the profile folder, and changing the permissions both on the copiedfolder structure and the loaded ntuser.dat hive would have the best chance to work, but unfortuantely it doesnt. Not fully. Last time i tried this everything seemed ok at first but i couldnt get network connectivity, or get into networking control panel. Some strange permissions issue reportedshowing the GUID ofone of the shell folders.Also I dontthink that its acceptable for those who want to manipulate their default user profiles on an installed system to be told that - "the only way you can do this is to use sysprep and reimage your machine". Thats just insulting.MS - Sort yourselves out. start living on the same planet as corporate customers. Make a utility that enables proper manipulation of user profiles. And do it fast!!I wont go into production with an OS where i have no control over user profiles. No Win7 deployment for us until this is sorted. My recommendation to my company will be... its still not ready.As you can see from the amount of complaints in this thread, this is really stupid situation. The kind ofoversight or stupiditythat we hope not to see, but unfortunately is all too common in MS lately.:(<EDIT> Apologies for the rant. This kind of thing really annoys me. I should learn to cool down a bit before i postbut in essence i stand by what i said here, even if it comes across as a bit emotional :pAlso:Ive been playing around with the manual profile copy i mentioned above.The network error i mentioned:The systray icon saying the network wasnt available andthe inability to get into the network and sharing centre: - it seems that this error was relatd tothe gui only. While the systray icon was saying the network wasnt available and i couldnt get into network and sharing centre,ipconfig and ping both confirmed to me that the network was in fact working ok.This doesnt happen if youexclude'AppData\Local' and'AppData\LocalLow' when you copy the profile foldersBut still I think we really need a tool to copy user profiles properly. This just feels like a bodge, and i'm not sure what other problems might be lurking in there</EDIT>
August 23rd, 2009 4:38pm

Boxing Surfer, Really? You can't copy a local profile to a different one? I just did the following on my computer running build 7100: Create a new user account Open up the User Profiles window, choose a user with whom you've not logged into since last reboot Click Copy To... and type in \Users\accountname using the name of the account in step 1 Set permissions to Everyone, then click OK I didn't have any extra profiles set up so I copied the Default Profile over to the new account, but it should all work the same. Only time I've ever had trouble is if I logged into the source user account before trying to copy it - that locks files as in use and only a restart will clear that up. Also, a couple sidenotes since my last post: The more I use Sysprep the more I like it over the traditional way we all used in XP, to the point that I'm probably going to start using the sysprep way of setting a default profile even in XP system deployments at work. Things that need to be set differently for different departments can almost always be customized within domain GPOs, and on the default user account I've been creating "gateway" links that link to resources for each department. For example instead of adding printers to the default profile image I have a desktop shortcut labeled "Add Printer" that goes to the print server (\\printers)- People see the full company listing of printers and just double-click the printer they need to install it - no need to have separate profiles per department. For internal websites, I just bookmark all of them, sorted into folders by department - basic security practices should keep people from getting to sites or network shares that they shouldn't be going to even though there's a link to it on their desktop. And finally, a question about copying profiles: When copying a profile to another one and setting the permissions, what is the point? Does anyone ever set the permissions to something other than Everyone and how does that affect things?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 24th, 2009 3:27am

Zombie: thanks for the responseOn my Win7 build7100 installation ihave 6 local user accounts and 6 local user profiles. Heres what I'm seeing1) After a clean reboot of the machine, i log on withthe local admin account2) In 'System > ...>Profiles, the 'Copy to' button is greyed out for any profile I select, except the 'Defualt Profile', where its visibleIt seems that 'default user'is the only profile that you are allowed to copy.reading around the internet and also this thread indicates that others are experiencing the same behaviourThe assumtion seems to be that these other profiles must be locked in some way and that why people are having difficulty copying them. But they are defintely not locked. This happens after the machine has been clean rebooted.I noticed you saidyou copied your default user profile and this worked ok. I can indeed confirm that this does work. But it does not work for any other user profile. Did you try it with any others? After all, it would not typically be the default user account you would want to copy, but one that youve logged on to and modified manually - for whatever reason.This copy profile function was also used for creating mandatory profiles. We would prepare the profile how we wanted it, reboot the workstation, log onto the machine with a local adminaccount and then copy the preparedprofile out to a network location with the 'copy to' button, setting the permissions on the way. It seems that this is no longer possible now. So i'm also curious about what is the supported method to create and copy mandatory user profiles in Win7?I think that the problems being discussed here in this thread are 2 separate problems, and they should remain seperate so as not to confuse the relationship between them:1) why is it no longer possible to use the 'Copy To' button to copy local user profiles? (its greyed out for all profiles except the default profile, even after a clean reboot)2) why is manipulation of the default user profile only supported via sysprep/ unattend. This is a huge overhead to systems administration.I dont have a problem with sysprep and unattend... I quite like the new implementation of the tools, but what if you want to make a slight modification toa default user profile on a single or a small group of machines? The only supported way to do that is to re-image all the machines. That sucks.There needs to be a better way.As for the point youre making aboutpermissions If you're copying a local user profile, other than the default user, of course the permissions need to be changed, because the profile files and the ntuser.dat hiveare originally secured for the individual user only. If you wantthe profileto be usable for anyone else, oreveryone else, the permission still needs to be set on the copied profile. In my environment we user 'authenticated users' rather than everyone, but its more or less the same effect. We just prefer not to use 'everyone'in any ACE's at all.regardsJ
August 24th, 2009 4:12pm

Boxing Surfer,Really? You can't copy a local profile to a different one? I just did the following on my computer running build 7100: Create a new user account Open up the User Profiles window, choose a user with whom you've not logged into since last reboot Click Copy To... and type in \Users\accountname using the name of the account in step 1 Set permissions to Everyone, then click OK I didn't have any extra profiles set up so I copied the Default Profile over to the new account, but it should all work the same. Only time I've ever had trouble is if I logged into the source user account before trying to copy it - that locks files as in use and only a restart will clear that up. Boxing Surfer is correct, you cannot copy a modified local profile to a different one. You CAN copy the Default Profile but that is the ONLY profile that you are allowed to copy.Files aren't locked as you can "delete" the profiles, you just can't copy them.This is Microsoft's attempts to screw-up Network Administrators by trying to protect them from themselves. Really again I don't think they have ANY faith that those doing their jobs actually know HOW to do their jobs and don't need Microsoft playing "Super Nanny" trying to control their every move.If this isn't fixed we will stick with XP until switching to Linux. If I have to run 3rd party apps to get back all the functionality of an OS then I may as well run it on an OS that I can actually customize.lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 24th, 2009 7:22pm

Thank you, Imfusio! I just had the same problem and your solution works. Only small comment - Windows Enabler must be "Run as Administrator"
August 25th, 2009 2:42pm

Thank you, Imfusio! I just had the same problem and your solution works. Only small comment - Windows Enabler must be "Run as Administrator" Hi Pavel. Yeah that method is quite interesting, butthere is something worth noting in relation to thatWhen I tried with windows enabler, the copy buttonis usable againbut the resulting copied profile has a lot of differencesI'm not sure exaclty what the implications of this are.The profile seems to work ok,butaquick comparison of the two profiles - original and copy - showed metherewere differences in their size and structure.The most obvious thing is that the copy ismissing all of the junction points present in the originalI dont fully understand the purpose of all those junction points. Could anyone speculate as to the possible implications of not having them?But yeah - i agree with Pavel. This would seem to be quite a usefull workaround, if indeed the resulting profile is robustI too thank you Imfusio!You may have saved us from the worst intentions of Microsoft themselves!!!:)
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 25th, 2009 5:14pm

Thank you, Imfusio! I just had the same problem and your solution works. Only small comment - Windows Enabler must be "Run as Administrator" Hi Pavel. Yeah that method is quite interesting, butthere is something worth noting in relation to thatWhen I tried with windows enabler, the copy buttonis usable againbut the resulting copied profile has a lot of differencesI'm not sure exaclty what the implications of this are.The profile seems to work ok,butaquick comparison of the two profiles - original and copy - showed metherewere differences in their size and structure.The most obvious thing is that the copy ismissing all of the junction points present in the originalI dont fully understand the purpose of all those junction points. Could anyone speculate as to the possible implications of not having them?But yeah - i agree with Pavel. This would seem to be quite a usefull workaround, if indeed the resulting profile is robustI too thank you Imfusio!You may have saved us from the worst intentions of Microsoft themselves!!!:) Junction Points are for backwards compatability with XP. However, with a roaming profile for Vista you shouldn't use them. However, I create the folders just in case they need to be there. I redirect all my folders anyway.lforbes
August 27th, 2009 8:45am

Hello,For total clarity, here is what I have done and it was successful using the Windows Enabler tool. As noted, Windows Enabler does not actually install on the computer so it can easily be run off a USB thumb drive or network share to 'enable' locked menus and buttons. Basically you: Download Windows Enabler. Save it to a thumb drive or share. On the system you need to copy a profile, Right-Click and choose "Run As Administrator" on the Windows Enabler EXE. Click the Windows Enabler Notification Tray icon to activate Windows Enabler. Open the USER PROFILES dialog and click on the greyed out COPY TO... button to see it become enabled. Copy the profile as you used to in XP and Vista. Regarding the comment about wallpaper not copying - save the wallpaper in the PUBLIC\PICTURES folder and it will work just fine. The profile copy function is 'smart' and doesn't copy a number of extraneous items like the contents of DOCUMENTS, PICTURES, etc which is likely why you didn't get a wallpaper after copying the profile. By using the PUBLIC folders you don't end up with a copy of the wallpaper in each profile which is a little more space effective.Also, if you like desktop gadgets and want to include them in your default profile you need to do the following:* Create a folder named MICROSOFT in C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local* In C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft copy the WINDOWS SIDEBAR folder from C:\Users\<<USERNAME>>\AppData\Local\Microsoft (<<USERNAME>> is the user you used to create the profile you are copying to default).Hope this helps, Chris
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 27th, 2009 9:34pm

HiI found this post because this problem is also on "Windows Server 2008 R2". We are about to migrate our Terminal Servers to Windows Server 2008 R2, but it's a problem because we can't make any changes to the default profile.An example is that in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 there are no Quick Launch menu anymore, now Microsoft is using "pinned programs" and these you just can't place as a shortcut in the profile, like you could with Quick Launch. There are a lot of bineray code in the registry also.Our users are using Quick Launch a lot, so we need the "pinned programs" as a replacment, but default the users get the following pinned programs: "Power Shell", "Server manager", "Windows Explorer".WHY are the users given "Power Shell" and "Server Manager" as default?? yes, you can properly remove access to these from a GPO, but how do you add "pinned programs". I have found a script that might be able to do it... but the only right thing to do -as I seeit -is to modify the default profile. I think Iwill try the Windows enabler, but it would be appreciated if Microsoft could release some documentation on this and explain why they have greyed out the "Copy to..." button.Thanks
August 31st, 2009 10:48pm

Hello,For total clarity, here is what I have done and it was successful using the Windows Enabler tool. As noted, Windows Enabler does not actually install on the computer so it can easily be run off a USB thumb drive or network share to 'enable' locked menus and buttons. Basically you: Download Windows Enabler. Save it to a thumb drive or share. On the system you need to copy a profile, Right-Click and choose "Run As Administrator" on the Windows Enabler EXE. Click the Windows Enabler Notification Tray icon to activate Windows Enabler. Open the USER PROFILES dialog and click on the greyed out COPY TO... button to see it become enabled. Copy the profile as you used to in XP and Vista. Regarding the comment about wallpaper not copying - save the wallpaper in the PUBLIC\PICTURES folder and it will work just fine. The profile copy function is 'smart' and doesn't copy a number of extraneous items like the contents of DOCUMENTS, PICTURES, etc which is likely why you didn't get a wallpaper after copying the profile. By using the PUBLIC folders you don't end up with a copy of the wallpaper in each profile which is a little more space effective.Also, if you like desktop gadgets and want to include them in your default profile you need to do the following:* Create a folder named MICROSOFT in C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local* In C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft copy the WINDOWS SIDEBAR folder from C:\Users\<<USERNAME>>\AppData\Local\Microsoft (<<USERNAME>> is the user you used to create the profile you are copying to default).Hope this helps, Chris Darn, I thought that the wallpaper issue might be resolvedby using Chris's suggestions above butit did not work for me. I tried the following: I tried copying the wallpaper to the c:\Users\Public\Pictures folder and that did not work. I also tried making a c:\wallpaper folder and copying the wallpaper file there, no luck. I even tried changing the wallpaper from a .jpg to a .bmp file (trick from previous version of windows) but evertime that a new test user would logon the wallpaper would just go back to black. If anyone else has any ideas for how to set the wallpaper I'm all ears!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 31st, 2009 11:50pm

The wallpaper issue has to be another bug. Everyone keeps telling me to manage these settings from group policy or local policy. After dealing with this I tried it. I tried setting the wallpaper in gpedit.msc to force a wallpaper. I reboot and the wallpaper is enforced on that profile no problem. But when I log in as a new user the wallpaper is black and theme is disabled. So it has nothing to do with modifying the default profile, because local security policy can't even set the wallpaper.
September 2nd, 2009 8:36pm

I don't need to copy a domain profile, but I copied a local user profile to default and this worked perfect. Just like the old days. Thank you very much!!! I had an issue with logging into XPM mode it did not save the credentials. So anyone who uses that make sure you remember the default account user name you set.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 2nd, 2009 8:58pm

Has anyone tried this? I haven't had a chance and it will be awhile before I can test Windows 7 again.Logon as a user and set the profile.Logon as AdministratorGo to C:\Users and RENAME Default to DefaultKeep.Rename user profile above to DEFAULT.Logoff and back on again as an Administrator (or restart if necessary).Go into the System Profiles and select "Default" and choose "Copy Profile". It allows you to copy the default one. Set the permissions to "everyone" and copy to a network share.Go back in and rename the Default one back to users name and then copy the Network Share created and call it "Default" or use the network one for setting up mandatory roaming profiles like I do.Anyway I am thinking this may work. The other option is to see if it lets you copy domain roaming profiles that are not set to be deleted on logoff.Cheers,Lara lforbes I tried it in W7 RTM Enterprise.It's not working.When you logon, you got an empty "C:\users\joe\".Alex
September 3rd, 2009 11:49pm

I would assert at this point that the method posted by Imfusio above works well.I think its the bestworkaround until microsoft dignify us with some kind of alternative or fix to bring back a fully supported profile copying method within the OS,that doesnt involve sysprepping and generalizing the OSWithout it, their entire body of documentation for creating roaming or mandatory profiles is null and void, as you cant actually do it without this function.I reitterate my request again: Microsoftwill you please post some meaningful information about thisASAP?Butbased on the responses we've had from them so far (or rather the lack of them), Isomewhat doubt that they really give a hoot about the difficulty their customers are facingwith this issue
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 4th, 2009 3:00pm

how about going to start-->all programs-->accessories-->system tools-->windows easy transferIn windows XP it had a similar tools, but instead of copy the profile from one phyical machine to the next. You can utilize the tools to copy the profile from one folder to another.
October 6th, 2009 8:46pm

how about going to start-->all programs-->accessories-->system tools-->windows easy transferIn windows XP it had a similar tools, but instead of copy the profile from one phyical machine to the next. You can utilize the tools to copy the profile from one folder to another. No luck. The probelm is that we need to be able to set the default profile and after you use the easy transfer wizard you must pick an existing account on the destination computer (or create a new one) to transfer to. You cannot pick the default profile or browse to the destination folder on the hard drive (i.e. C:\Users\Default).
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
October 6th, 2009 10:58pm

Hi All,I ran across this thread when searching for info regarding the same problem (Win 7 RC Ultimate Edition 32-Bit). My perspective is slightly different in that I service primarily home and small business PCs. When people say Win 7 and Vista are just for home and not business due to problems with the Default User Profile changes, I have to disagree.. but not for the reasons you would expect. It is quite common for home users to have multiple User IDs on their PCs, and home users don't have a Domain to logon to or a way to use Group Policy etc. Basically what it comes down to is that when I have to setup/configure/customize a PC for a home or small business, it is way too time consuming to do all of the customizations for each and every Local User ID on the PC. I probably do way more customizing than most, from desktop configuration, start menu shortcuts, IE preferences and tweaking it's security up, power settings.. software, printers.. icon arrangement, window sizing and arrangement, Windows Explorer settings.. pretty much anything that a user would customize I do.. and then some. With home users, you don't have any advantage of having a corporate standard.. and telling your users they can't have something because it's not standard.. or they have to live with a setting because it's the standard. If you've ever gone through all of just the settings in IE alone.. you know it's not fun to do this for 5 different users on one PC (I now import a standard set of IE registry settings to skip this each time. Being able to Export and Import all of the many IE settings is a greatly needed feature as well. Just the Bookmarks is NOT enough.). Modifing a template Limited User ID (not Administrator per MS instructions) in XP and using the Copy To profile feature is part of the method I've been using.. But even the MS instructions for this are WRONG for XP. After you copy the profile, the permissions are still not quite right and the Owner is wrong also (both easily fixed in SAFE Mode). But, if you've noticed.. this breaks the My Documents/My Pictures etc. user customizations (these folders don't get renamed as the User's.. like Bob's Documents etc.). MS posted a fix for this that involved editing the Desktop.ini, which also DOES NOT WORK properly. Another method is to just delete these folders from the Default Profile and let Windows recreate them when the user logs in and tries to access them (which does work). The work-around for this I use is to add a shortcut in Startup for the template user (the one that gets copied to Default User) that runs a CMD file that runs the PerUserInit command (c:\windows\system32\rundll32.exe c:\windows\system32\mydocs.dll,PerUserInit), which forces the per user customization to run at first logon and deletes itself after. I use this rather than a Run Once registry entry since it is easier to manage and confirm that it's in place or ran, and easier to put back since just the shortcut gets deleted. This way each User's My Documents etc gets named correctly. Other changes like Power Management get imported in by loading the hive (since Limited Users can't change this). But..that's for XP. I was thinking with the changes to the naming of the Documents folders etc that a PerUserInit trick would no longer be needed and things would be a little easier.. Without the Copy Profile option, setting up multiple local IDs is going to be a real pain. It is also my understanding that Group Policy isn't available for Home Editions, which is one of the recommended ways to do this sort of customization. As for Sysprep.. I don't see that as a good option either. After all they don't need a deployment image (which will be out-dated the day you setup their PC), they just need multiple customized Local User IDs. So I would say this is as much or more of a pain for Home users as it is for business users. This needs to be fixed.. and it needs to be fixed so that it actually works correctly without having to fiddle with Permissions or Desktop.ini files or some PerUserInit type thing to make it work the way it should. I also mentioned IE, and I know that's not the same topic but it is related. There needs to be an EXPORT and IMPORT for ALL IE settings. There are just too many settings in IE to not have a way to save them without having to hack the registry. MS gave these OS's the ability to have multiple User IDs with varying configurations, but they didn't provide a good way to apply many standard settings to each User ID when it gets created. MS needs to understand that most/many people do not just use the default settings, but consistency is very often needed even for Home users and home business across multiple IDs on a single PC. If replacing/modifying the Default User Profile is not the new or preferred way, then maybe EACH setting should have the option (checkbox or MAKE Default button?) to make it the SYSTEM WIDE DEFAULT to begin with for every User ID, while still allowing each user to make changes to their own personal settings after they get the initial System Wide Defaults. MS PLEASE FIX THIS BEFORE YOU RELEASE IT!
October 13th, 2009 10:24am

Hi there...I'm adding to this Win7x32 or Win7x64 "Copy To" user profile grayed out issues.Yes, dfinetively Microsoft has... well... "must" give us back the that feature since it will give us back a way to customize our defualt profiles for numerous settings we need for certian security and software and common simple profile setting needs.I make images fora big corporateand so far I have not been able to get that area to work as needed.Becuase of that fact/bug, I have no option but to report this to my superiors on this matter and explain them about thisand, warn themwhat we are going to experience if we decide to move to Windows 7.I'm afraid when informing about this bug to IT Management, theywill think it not twice, but more than 5 times to take a decision to move to Windows 7.So please, Microsoft personel, would you mind to get that fixed?Should you have a way to resolve this, please, inform me about it ASAP.I've seen and found lots of work-arounds. tweaks etc, that work, but we are serios on this business and would not make something from the outside, since you are getting the lic $$$ per each lic is reported to Microsoft.So, please, let me know if you have figured it out.I know you knowwhat I'm talking about, since you know pretty much well your Microsoft Products.Kindly thank you for your attentions to this concern.Please, excuse my typos ;-)JCB
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
October 22nd, 2009 4:56am

1) The enabler is cool and it works JUST FINE TO COPY THE PROFILES, but 2) Once the desired profile is copied over the target user, the target user's login stops working: a) Chose user ---> b) type in password ---> c) Welcome message, spinning activity cursor ---> d) "Loging out" message ---> e) back to the original login screen. No way to log into the patched user profile. The ONLY reason I am wasting my time with Win 7, in the first place, is because I need to use more memory for some of my productivity apps. i.e 64-bit OS. I refused to purchase Vista for any of my machines, both my private use and for the company I own. Vista was repugnant garbage since day 1, DRM and all. The problem is that Windows 7 is nothing more than Vista on steroids !!!! Microsoft are much more interested in world domination, than in developing a decent product. The trouble is that their software engineers are IDIOTS. An I should appologize to the idiots for the comparison. The TriLLL
October 27th, 2009 2:07pm

1) The enabler is cool and it works JUST FINE TO COPY THE PROFILES, but2) Once the desired profile is copied over the target user, the target user's login stops working: a) Chose user ---> b) type in password ---> c) Welcome message, spinning activity cursor ---> d) "Loging out" message ---> e) back to the original login screen. No way to log into the patched user profile.The ONLY reason I am wasting my time with Win 7, in the first place,is because I need to use more memory for some of my productivity apps.i.e 64-bit OS.I refused to purchase Vista for any of my machines, both my private use and for thecompany I own. Vista was repugnant garbage since day 1, DRM and all.The problem is that Windows 7 is nothing more than Vista on steroids !!!!Microsoft are much more interested in world domination, than in developinga decent product. The trouble is that their software engineers are IDIOTS.An I should appologize to the idiots for the comparison.The TriLLL You copy the profile to the "Default User" profile. You don't copy it to an active users profile. And even if you did it ouldn't cause any problems. I just tried it your way and it works perfectly there just as it does doing it my way.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 3rd, 2009 10:21pm

This is absolutely ridiculous. We'll be getting away from MS in as many ways as possible until some day we can get completely rid of them.
November 11th, 2009 12:59am

I used windows enabler method and after I loginwith new user, I get the errors:c:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\desktop refers to a location that is unavailable. Then down by the time:User Profile ServiceYou have been logged on with the default profile for the system. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator. Great job on Windows 7.. Looks to be as eventful as the Vista release.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 23rd, 2009 9:39pm

Hey all,Another discruntled Win 7 tester :(So it's been 5 months since the quote below. A few people have responded to it on the forum and I'm sure several will have mailed Darrell directly. Yet there is no response or feedback to the comunity who started and contributed to this thread.I find it odd that MS have asked any of the questions below, I'm sure most of the answers are self explanitory to them since they wrote/included the Profile Copy tool in the first place. :S Hello all,I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced.Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios.If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as wellDarrellg@online.microsoft.comremove the online from the address to send to me Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often? What types of customizations areyou doing? What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights So I feel I must add my two cents to this thread and answer these questions, plus add my experiences and thoughts on other topics in this dicussion.A little background:- I work for a large British University. We have somewhere in the region of 6000 staff and 30000 students. My team personally looks after 1000+ open accessPC's available to all staff and students for study, teaching (and lets be honest, a large slice of facebook :P ). So in answer to the above questions....... Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often?Potentially 36000 people need to have the same experience as every other user on our PC's to make sure that those teaching can acturately transfer the content of their lecture to their students no matter which room their in, no matter who is in the class.With 150+ applications and utilities that have to bemade available for everyone to use, it is quite some task to ensure everyone gets the same experience. Further more, with changes to courses and what we're licensed for (you'd be amazed at how often certain departments temporaily addextra components to their licenses for specialist courses) the default profile often needs tweaking.And tweaking here is the crux of it. I log in as the a standard non-admin user, make a couple of small tweaks, log back in as admin, copy the profile, done - 3 mins. In the manual copy method (Manual copy of folder -> Delete Local + Local Low -> Load ntuser.dat hive to registry -> Change perms -> Unload ntuser.dat) this extends to more like 6 or 7 mins. Sysprep....by the time it's generalised, booted, respecialised and added it self back to the domain, this has taken 10 to 15 minutes depending on hardware. On a one off job, yeah this makes no bones. Try doing this on 9 different images. It goes from 3 x 9 = 27 minutes to (taking an average) 12.5 x 9 = 107.5 minutes, that's an hour and 47 minutes! Ouch! What types of customizations areyou doing?9images! I hear you say. Yes it a fair few...actually we have 7 more. Disparrity in hardware andsoftware (due to license restrictions) means that we have to keep different images for different areas of campus and I'm fairly sure we're not the only people who suffer from this issue. So why don't we use msi packages or virtual apps? For a start theres so many (150+) all programmed with varying degrees of competency andsome of which use drivers which can't be virtualised making it impossible to package/virtualise them all in the narrow summer vacation window we have to updatea large chunk of thesoftware in the summer.This all a little by the by, but what I'm gettin at is that not all enterprises, be they business, education, non profit, etc, have a core set of 5-20 apps that are easily configured, customisedand deployed through various deployment services. In fact a lot of enterprise have very complex IT needs and therefore need solutions that work quickly. I don;t want to spend 1 hour 47 mins tweaking profiles, I want to spend 27 mins. It's not necessarily that I'm making tweaks a lot, it may be that I have to make the same tweak several times. In either case I want a tool which does it fast and with no fuss or prior <cough sysprep> setup to get it to work. What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default?Local default mostly, but we do have some mandatory profiles in training rooms. I've never thoguht of newtwork default, but actually this might be useful (althought with the masive size of profiles in Vista/Win 7 might prove too much of a drag on the network when 200+ students all log in on the hour on the same subnet for a class. We used to keep them to 5-6MB, now they're consistently 20MB+). Why is sysprep inadequate for this?To quote myself...."It [the time it takes to make a change to the default profile on 9 different images] goes from 3 x 9 = 27 minutes to (taking an average) 12.5 x 9 = 107.5 minutes, that's an hour and 47 minutes! Ouch!"Is the main reason, appart from the fact you have to configure the unattend.xml first and all the unecessarystuff that sysprep does to generalise and the specialise the installtion. The fact that sysprep occasionally completly screws up a windows installation meaning the PC has to be reimaged and the changes that were lost, made again, also make me very reticent to use sysprep as it's doing far, far more than is necessary than is required to make a default profile change.In my IT experience, the fewer changes and operations you perform on an OS, the better it performs. Even if your using the same tool with the same method with the same configuration, with the same software, the more changes and opperations that are performed lead to an increased risk of corruption in some form. Therefore I want my tool to do the bare minimum that is required to safely make the change. I am 100% sure sysprep does not do this and 100% sure the profile copy tool does.Please save us all time, fingernails and hair and give us this tool back....it means so much. Really it does.On a futher note. I've tried the windows enabler tool with Windows Enterprise RTM Build7600 - I can't get it to work, I can't get the Copy To button to un-grey or become active in any way. Please if anyone knows of the steps to get this small but potentially extremly useful tool to work, I'd be eternally grateful. (I've run it as admin, copied the exe and dll locally and had no luck :S )So that's me done! Here's hoping!Cheers,Matt
November 27th, 2009 7:04pm

Hey all,Another discruntled Win 7 tester :(So it's been 5 months since the quote below. A few people have responded to it on the forum and I'm sure several will have mailed Darrell directly. Yet there is no response or feedback to the comunity who started and contributed to this thread.I find it odd that MS have asked any of the questions below, I'm sure most of the answers are self explanitory to them since they wrote/included the Profile Copy tool in the first place. :S Hello all,I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced.Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios.If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as wellDarrellg@online.microsoft.comremove the online from the address to send to me Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often? What types of customizations areyou doing? What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights So I feel I must add my two cents to this thread and answer these questions, plus add my experiences and thoughts on other topics in this dicussion.A little background:- I work for a large British University. We have somewhere in the region of 6000 staff and 30000 students. My team personally looks after 1000+ open accessPC's available to all staff and students for study, teaching (and lets be honest, a large slice of facebook :P ). So in answer to the above questions....... Whyis there aneed to update the default profile so often?Potentially 36000 people need to have the same experience as every other user on our PC's to make sure that those teaching can acturately transfer the content of their lecture to their students no matter which room their in, no matter who is in the class.With 150+ applications and utilities that have to bemade available for everyone to use, it is quite some task to ensure everyone gets the same experience. Further more, with changes to courses and what we're licensed for (you'd be amazed at how often certain departments temporaily addextra components to their licenses for specialist courses) the default profile often needs tweaking.And tweaking here is the crux of it. I log in as the a standard non-admin user, make a couple of small tweaks, log back in as admin, copy the profile, done - 3 mins. In the manual copy method (Manual copy of folder -> Delete Local + Local Low -> Load ntuser.dat hive to registry -> Change perms -> Unload ntuser.dat) this extends to more like 6 or 7 mins. Sysprep....by the time it's generalised, booted, respecialised and added it self back to the domain, this has taken 10 to 15 minutes depending on hardware. On a one off job, yeah this makes no bones. Try doing this on 9 different images. It goes from 3 x 9 = 27 minutes to (taking an average) 12.5 x 9 = 107.5 minutes, that's an hour and 47 minutes! Ouch! What types of customizations areyou doing?9images! I hear you say. Yes it a fair few...actually we have 7 more. Disparrity in hardware andsoftware (due to license restrictions) means that we have to keep different images for different areas of campus and I'm fairly sure we're not the only people who suffer from this issue. So why don't we use msi packages or virtual apps? For a start theres so many (150+) all programmed with varying degrees of competency andsome of which use drivers which can't be virtualised making it impossible to package/virtualise them all in the narrow summer vacation window we have to updatea large chunk of thesoftware in the summer.This all a little by the by, but what I'm gettin at is that not all enterprises, be they business, education, non profit, etc, have a core set of 5-20 apps that are easily configured, customisedand deployed through various deployment services. In fact a lot of enterprise have very complex IT needs and therefore need solutions that work quickly. I don;t want to spend 1 hour 47 mins tweaking profiles, I want to spend 27 mins. It's not necessarily that I'm making tweaks a lot, it may be that I have to make the same tweak several times. In either case I want a tool which does it fast and with no fuss or prior <cough sysprep> setup to get it to work. What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default?Local default mostly, but we do have some mandatory profiles in training rooms. I've never thoguht of newtwork default, but actually this might be useful (althought with the masive size of profiles in Vista/Win 7 might prove too much of a drag on the network when 200+ students all log in on the hour on the same subnet for a class. We used to keep them to 5-6MB, now they're consistently 20MB+). Why is sysprep inadequate for this?To quote myself...."It [the time it takes to make a change to the default profile on 9 different images] goes from 3 x 9 = 27 minutes to (taking an average) 12.5 x 9 = 107.5 minutes, that's an hour and 47 minutes! Ouch!"Is the main reason, appart from the fact you have to configure the unattend.xml first and all the unecessarystuff that sysprep does to generalise and the specialise the installtion. The fact that sysprep occasionally completly screws up a windows installation meaning the PC has to be reimaged and the changes that were lost, made again, also make me very reticent to use sysprep as it's doing far, far more than is necessary than is required to make a default profile change.In my IT experience, the fewer changes and operations you perform on an OS, the better it performs. Even if your using the same tool with the same method with the same configuration, with the same software, the more changes and opperations that are performed lead to an increased risk of corruption in some form. Therefore I want my tool to do the bare minimum that is required to safely make the change. I am 100% sure sysprep does not do this and 100% sure the profile copy tool does.Please save us all time, fingernails and hair and give us this tool back....it means so much. Really it does.On a futher note. I've tried the windows enabler tool with Windows Enterprise RTM Build7600 - I can't get it to work, I can't get the Copy To button to un-grey or become active in any way. Please if anyone knows of the steps to get this small but potentially extremly useful tool to work, I'd be eternally grateful. (I've run it as admin, copied the exe and dll locally and had no luck :S )So that's me done! Here's hoping!Cheers,Matt Darrell doesn't work for MS. He's just a talking head that thinks he knows something. Obviously since he has never responded you can see that he doesn't.As for the Enabler program you have to run, turnit on and then runit as an Administrator otherwise the button will be grayed out.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 1st, 2009 11:38pm

Hello Mattcdse,Thanks for the feedback, it was useful and very detailed.Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
December 2nd, 2009 12:25am

Does Microsoft itself have an official stand or any official workarounds for this yet???
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 2nd, 2009 12:36am

Hello RandyP2181,I do work for MicrosoftThanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
December 2nd, 2009 12:36am

This doesn't work. Are you affiliated with Microsoft? Does Microsoft have an official workaround for this in the works???
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 2nd, 2009 12:37am

Hello Mattcdse,Thanks for the feedback, it was useful and very detailed. Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights Darrell.....I agree, this was usefull. But is it really so necessaryfor such a long and detailed explaination to really make clear what this whole threads been saying all along: its a freakin' pain in the ar*e and takes like4 times as long to manage user profiles.The fact that MSdont seem to see it as a problem at all, and NEED such detailed explaination is the most worrying thing in this situation.
December 2nd, 2009 1:54am

Hello Mattcdse,Thanks for the feedback, it was useful and very detailed. Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights Hi Darrell,Thank you for giving recoginition to my previos post.Please could you be so kind as to return the favour and give us some useful and detailed feedback in response? I feel this thread and the community deserve something more than a'thanks for your response reply'. Something along the lines of, thanks for the reply, I will post a response in the next couple of days/weeks/months. Sooner rather than later obviously, but at least make it seem like it's being taken seriously andthen let us know thataction is or never will be taken. There's an awful lot of people hanging on issues like this and they would probably like to be able to plan for the furture.I may be doing you a diservice here, you may just be the messenger boy (notmeant to be disparaging)and have no knowledge of what's being done. If that is the case, please find someone who does and get them to update us.I know that this is a little besides the point, buta software company that is very much in touch and interactivewith its comunity is Blizzard (the makers of World of Warcraft MMORPG). Go check out the forums. Any blue post you find is a response from an official Blizzard employee. I'll be surprised if you can't find one, there are 50+ a week with proper feedback(if you really can't find one, go to mmo-champion.com and click the top link in the left hand menu to the blue tracker. This is a shortcut to all blue posts that mmo-champion are able to find). My point is that they continually respond with updates to what/why they are/aren't working on. It generates good constructive debate between the developers and the users which means the developer a) get a huge bug hunting team, for free b) they can focus on what the community really wants fixed, not just what they think ought to be fixed and c) generates a whole heap of respect. Yeah you get people on Blizzard's forumswho appear to be very negative about Blizzard, but that's because it's a game...they don't like to loose. Pride is at stake.I'd imagine that if MS were a little more engaged with its community this kind of post and the 5+ month lag for any kind of useful response which causes the grumbles wouldn't exist.We don't want to grumble, we just want action and intelligent engagement in debate. Not a lollipop, a pat on the back and shown the door. (Actually, can I have the lolly?!)Ok, I've written more than I intended to.@RandyP2181 - Re: Enabler -Thanks for the reply,I've tried every combination of what your reply seems to suggest without any luck. I run Enabler, turn it on, then should I....- Run it again as an admin with the previous instance still running (which it doesn't let me do, it just says one instance of it is enough)- Quit enabler then run it again as an admin and switch it on, then try to make the changes- Run the User Setting bit as admin. (I thought it did anyway as it has the admin shield next to its link. If there is another way please let let us know :) )- Something else that I'm not getting from your replyCheers,Matt
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 3rd, 2009 2:14pm

@RandyP2181 - Re: Enabler -Thanks for the reply,I've tried every combination of what your reply seems to suggest without any luck. I run Enabler, turn it on, then should I....- Run it again as an admin with the previous instance still running (which it doesn't let me do, it just says one instance of it is enough)- Quit enabler then run it again as an admin and switch it on, then try to make the changes- Run the User Setting bit as admin. (I thought it did anyway as it has the admin shield next to its link. If there is another way please let let us know :) )- Something else that I'm not getting from your replyCheers,Matt when logged on as admin:- make sure the enabler isnt already running- run the enabler- find the enabler icon in the systray - make sure enabler icon the systray icon says'ON'- open the profile management screen- the 'copy to...' button will still be greyed out- click the button once. - the 'copy to...' buttonshould then become available(un-greyed out)go ahead and usethe 'copy to...'function as you normally would.When youre done.... exit the enabler using the systray iconI've done this on lots of Win7 / 2008 R2 boxes without any issues.Incidentally, I'm not usingthis methodto modify default profiles. I'm using it mainly to copy out my customised user profiles formandatory and roaming profile use.Also, Matt: I hate to rain on your parade, but I dont think that MS is particularly interested in community engagement. There's no $$$ in it for them.From my recent experience, in this economic climateMS are really only addressing what they are seeing as 'showstoppers' Allissues and their response are being evaluated on a cost vs. benefit model.The questions being asked are:How serious doMS think the problem is?How much will it costsMS toresolve this problem?What isthecost toMSin terms of major customer loss / negative publicity?Of the 5 issues / bugs I've reported to MS Professional Support since Win7 2008 R2 launch, so far none ofthem are being addressed.Alsoworth noting: I had openeda PSS casefor this very issue.The MS response was exactly the same as ithas been all alongon this thread:To paraphrase that:"The features been disabled because copyinguser profiles in this way has been known to createproblems in certain situations""There is no alternate tool that provides the same functionality""Ooops, yes we forgot that this function is needed to create mandatory and roaming profile templates. Sorry about that""The workaround tocreate mandatory or romaing user profile templates isto copy the profile manually and change perms on the contents of user.dat manually also""the only supported method to modify the 'default' pofile is the 'sysprep /generalize' method""There is no alternate method. No fixes or alternate tools are being planned"I submitted a long and detailed critique as to why I thought the current (lack of) tools for user profile manipulation andmanagementare unacceptable. Microsofts response: "thanks for your feedback":S
December 3rd, 2009 3:05pm

Thanks boxing_surfer for the help :)It would seem that there is some lag on our systems from switching the enabler on to it working for some reason. Not quite worked out how much yet, but the fact it wasn't working straight away is what was confusing me. (Took me a good few minutes to write and edit this, and still the enabler isn't working. The apparent lag I'm experiencing maybe too long as a viable solution. I'll keep testing and see if I can find out why I'm getting lag)Don't worry you're not raining on my parade, I'm aware of the $$$ issue. Still I think it's worth saying there are good examples of customer interaction, and those models may actually be saving moneythrough focusing work on what's really key to the consumer.My 2 cents, 'tis all :)Cheers,Matt
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 3rd, 2009 4:03pm

Thanks boxing_surfer for the help :)It would seem that there is some lag on our systems from switching the enabler on to it working for some reason. Not quite worked out how much yet, but the fact it wasn't working straight away is what was confusing me.... Matt. Sorry i cant be more use there. I'm not experiencing any lag at all. This works from the moment I enable the enabler on all my Win7 / 2008 R2 systems i tried it on.good luck.
December 3rd, 2009 9:16pm

I was just using Vista wherethe profiles copy quite nicely and having said this my advice to all of you if you need things done is not to waste your time with 7.Seasons greetings!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 3rd, 2009 10:03pm

I was just using Vista wherethe profiles copy quite nicely and having said this my advice to all of you if you need things done is not to waste your time with 7.Seasons greetings!
December 3rd, 2009 10:03pm

Yikes. I wish I had hit this thread before I wasted all this time customizing a system image master machine. I've been using the copy local profile method for the last 5 years andI have never had a glitch. Our organization has multiple users on almost all of our workstations, and the profile copy has been absolutely necessary and a huge time saver.As it stands now, I will not be able to deploy Windows 7 on our network until this is resolved. What an absolute shame. I hope this is some sort of bug that they are working on and not some conscious decision to do away with the functionality.On a side note, the Enabler method worked great for allowing me to copy the profile, but it did not copy the custom desktop or theme settings.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 3rd, 2009 10:18pm

Microsoft knows why they disabled this feature it was so they don't have to support it. They same reason why the "copy user profile" switch in WAIK does not work without bricking your image in Sysprep. Point is the lack of response on this thread and Hundreds of others is pretty clear. We did get an answer that Mr. Gorter does work for MSFT, so comforting.
December 5th, 2009 1:30am

The only way to do that is customize the default aero theme and force the wallpaper through local group policy.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 5th, 2009 1:32am

I haven't tested this method extensively but it could be another alternative. 1) Customize your profile the way you want it. 2) Logon as an admin account 3) Set permissions on profile from step 1 to EVERYONE 4) Hide profile from 1 5) Regedit HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Profile List. Change the "Default" path to your user in step 1. Again, I haven't tested this extensively. I just did a quick test at home and it seemed to work. Feel free to blow this method out of the water.. I'm just trying to add some possible alternatives.
December 12th, 2009 8:52am

I was able to get windows enabler to work on one machine - I did experience the same delay as mentioned previously...now i'm trying to get it to work on a win7 VM without much luck. I really can't see our company rolling out windows 7 anywhere if MS refuses to support the ability to create a default profile. Sorry sysprep wipes away too many things to be useful.EDIT - I rebooted, ran through same steps for the 3rd or 4th time, this time enabler worked (no delay). Go figure. Microsoft I'm still super disappointed.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 17th, 2009 5:03pm

To customize a default user profile or a mandatory user profile, you must first customize the default user profile. Then, the default user profile can be copied to the appropriate shared folder to make that user profile either the default user profile or a mandatory user profile. Here is a link to the TechNet article that describes the process. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289
December 17th, 2009 6:51pm

To customize a default user profile or a mandatory user profile, you must first customize the default user profile. Then, the default user profile can be copied to the appropriate shared folder to make that user profile either the default user profile or a mandatory user profile. Here is a link to the TechNet article that describes the process. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 17th, 2009 6:51pm

To customize a default user profile or a mandatory user profile, you must first customize the default user profile. Then, the default user profile can be copied to the appropriate shared folder to make that user profile either the default user profile or a mandatory user profile. Here is a link to the TechNet article that describes the process. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289
December 17th, 2009 6:51pm

This doesn't include any HKCU registry entries. Created a key, added a desktop folder and start folder (didn't test favorites), went through the procedure. Desktop folder worked for new user, but not the startup folder and the key wasn't created in HKCU. There's no point to any of this if we can't customize software settings, make system tweaks, etc and have them stick for a new user. We can add links to all users desktop and all users start menu, notworried about that too much.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 17th, 2009 6:59pm

To customize a default user profile or a mandatory user profile, you must first customize the default user profile. Then, the default user profile can be copied to the appropriate shared folder to make that user profile either the default user profile or a mandatory user profile. Here is a link to the TechNet article that describes the process. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289 Having to run sysprep and basically resetting a Machine EVERY time I need to make a mandatory profile change is absolutely ridiculous. I will NOT be deploying Windows 7 until this HUGE flaw is fixed. lforbes
December 18th, 2009 7:51am

Having to run sysprep and basically resetting a Machine EVERY time I need to make a mandatory profile change is absolutely ridiculous. I will NOT be deploying Windows 7 until this HUGE flaw is fixed. lforbes agreed.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 18th, 2009 4:09pm

I think i found a solution. I created a user name "new profile". Signed onto new profile and then set up my profile as to how i want everyone's profile to look like.I signed on Administrator. Open Windows Explorer and Show hidden files, folders, and drives. Also UNCHEK (hide protected operating systems. Then i went to C:/Users. You should see a faded Default folder. Make a copy of it for backups and name it "Default - copy".Now, make a copy of "new profile", you can name it "new profile - copy".Delete the Default folder. and rename "new profile - copy" as "Default"There you go! that should fix it. I tested it out on our domain using several usernames and each profile looks like same. HOPE THIS HELPS! took me a long time to figure it out!
December 19th, 2009 2:52am

I've bean searching for a way to get the computer to log on to the Default acccount.Seasons greetings!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 19th, 2009 3:25am

I've bean searching for a way to get the computer to log on to the Default acccount.Seasons greetings!
December 19th, 2009 3:25am

I think i found a solution. I created a user name "new profile". Signed onto new profile and then set up my profile as to how i want everyone's profile to look like.I signed on Administrator. Open Windows Explorer and Show hidden files, folders, and drives. Also UNCHEK (hide protected operating systems. Then i went to C:/Users. You should see a faded Default folder. Make a copy of it for backups and name it "Default - copy".Now, make a copy of "new profile", you can name it "new profile - copy".Delete the Default folder. and rename "new profile - copy" as "Default"There you go! that should fix it. I tested it out on our domain using several usernames and each profile looks like same. HOPE THIS HELPS! took me a long time to figure it out! Mistah logic works.Using Mistah's logic I was able to do the following with some adjustments.The one issue I found was for some reason was unable to copy the contents of the profile I want directly to the Default profile folder.Also the Desktop Background does not copy but Icon Short Cuts do including positioning on the screen was correct.I don't really care about a desktop background, useless fluff most of the time.IE settings did copy. Installed software and short cuts worked. Note some software is pulling from the Server.So this is what I did and hope it helps someone out.Brand New Windows 7 Ultimate OS Install. All Updates installed as of 12/20/09Windows Server 2003 R2 Domain Environment.Join the the PC to the Domain. No issue doing this just like you do in XP Pro.Add the Domain User that you want to start with. Just like you do in XP Pro.Login as that user into the Domain. (Lets call him Master) At this point you get what MS supplies in the Default Profile.Do all of your software installs, Icon setups, printers installs etc.RebootLogin as Local Administrator on the PC. Not Domain Administrator.Open Windows Explorer and show everything Hidden files, operating files etc.Make a folder called Keep on C:Copy the Default profile folder to the Keep FolderCopy the Master profile folder to the Keep Folder. (Reason for this is copy and paste fails to copy the contents of Master Directly to Default don't know why and did not spend time trying to figure it out.)Delete the contents of the Default folder. (I don't delete the folder because then the default permissions for the folder are not changed.)Copy the contents of the Master Folder from the Keep folder to the Default Profile folder.At this point I added other network users and logged them in and they all go the Master Profile's look.Also comparing number of files, folders and Disk usage was similar. Not always dead on but only 1 or 2 files off similar to what XP Pro would do so I'm pretty sure all is good until I learn otherwise.Bill
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 22nd, 2009 1:18am

Hi, I used Windows Enabler and it seems to work. But I having some issues with it. I am trying to copy my administrator's profile to default user profile. So I created on additional admin. And using that admin and Windows Enabler, I tried to copy the admin profile but the background does not seem to get copied even though I can see all of the programs. But, it's a instutational build, so I need the same background for all profiles. Can anyone help me out please?Thank you
December 22nd, 2009 11:45pm

Hi everyone. I run in to this problem before I found this page and I was able to find the way around. It is basically the same as was described by Mistah except I did not delete Default profile. I copy the profile that has all apps and short cuts installed to a different folder. Then I login as another user, let’s say: guest. Then I logged out and logged in as admin. I went to the folder were I copy the profile, renamed it to “guest” and copied the profile to user folder overwriting the original “guest” profile. I then logged in as “guest” and all apps with short cuts were there. This leaves the original default user profile intact.micronusa
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 23rd, 2009 5:35am

the methot of reneming profile can be done for every user that logs in to the same computermicronusa
December 23rd, 2009 5:39am

zixp - I would force down the background using group policy, my problem is using windows enabler I'm having issues like "action center" still notifiying every user - and there seems to be no way to disable this with group policy, only with local policy. how are others getting around that? I hate to start setting some things in local policy if we can avoid it?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 30th, 2009 4:42pm

zixp - I would force down the background using group policy, my problem is using windows enabler I'm having issues like "action center" still notifiying every user - and there seems to be no way to disable this with group policy, only with local policy. how are others getting around that? I hate to start setting some things in local policy if we can avoid it? This could go off topic, so maybe worth starting a new thread if you want to troublehsoot that... but I'll give you a hint: If you can do it in local policy then you will be able to do it in domain group policy. Its possible you dont have the most recent group policy admin templates in your domain. You need to make sure that GPEdit can see the very latest ADMX & ADML files. if you are seeing different policiy options when you see in GPEdit.msc to edit local policy vs. domain policy, then thats the reason.I wont get into that on this thread, it a big subject, and depends if you are running group policy central store in your domain or not. I recommend setting up the central store as it makes managing ADMX files much easier. but hopefully you can do some reading around that subject.:)
December 30th, 2009 5:50pm

zixp - I would force down the background using group policy, my problem is using windows enabler I'm having issues like "action center" still notifiying every user - and there seems to be no way to disable this with group policy, only with local policy. how are others getting around that? I hate to start setting some things in local policy if we can avoid it? Hi,I don't think Windows Enabler changes anything in the profile. It just unlocks the profile to copy via windows. As for the action center I have never seen it so there must be a GP setting. As boxing_surfer says check to make sure you have the most up to date.Up to this point we are NOT deploying Windows 7 across our organization due to this issue. Without the ability to properly create Manadatory Roaming profiles, Windows 7 is useless to us.I am guessing this is why Windows 7's biggest competition is STILL Windows XP LOL. Those with Vista are upgrading to Windows 7 but most organizations like mine will not until these annoying "Microsoft imposed" bugs are fixed.MS says that to copy profiles using the system panel will make the profiles unusable. However then why don't they just CREATE a profile that IS useable. I am guessing they have lost their intelligent programmers. All a profile is, is a bunch of registry settings and there is NO way that they have to be modified with SYSPREP.I have 300 profiles that I change about 20-30 times a year every time applications are updated. MS's "suggestion" on how to create mandatory profiles deals with ONE not 300 and it says nothing about how to modify them 20-30 times as necessary http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289Who knows. It may beat Windows NT for the longest used OS in business. lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 6th, 2010 8:00am

MS says that to copy profiles using the system panel will make the profiles unusable. However then why don't they just CREATE a profile that IS useable. I am guessing they have lost their intelligent programmers. All a profile is, is a bunch of registry settings and there is NO way that they have to be modified with SYSPREP.... thats the $1,000,000 question!!One would have thought that microsoft should know how to programatiicaly construct a pofile thats stable!!!!The copy profile function could call that routine to 'run a pass' over the profile, making it 'ready for use', after its been copied....unless of course they dont, becuase they have actually lost control of the default user registry, like spaghettiYou might assume that if they could do it, it would have been done.You might also assume that because it hasnt been done, they dont know how to do it.Or perhaps they were too busy destroying Windows Explorer..... :)
January 6th, 2010 1:03pm

Hi all,A word (or so! :P ) of warning relating to mistah's and Bill Kalt's reply about copying profiles.Whilst on the surface the simple manual copying of the contents of a user's profile to the default profile apears to be a nice solution, it can lead to a creeping death effect on both the user profile ussed to create the default look and feel and the default profile itself.The Copy tool in XP and Vista appears to do mre than just copy files, it also makes accurate copies of the user's registry settings in the ntuser.dat file. Individual registry keys have permissions set on them. These permissions are not set using the Properties -> Security -> Edit permisions on the file, but are set through registry editor. So whilst you are maintaining the correct security permissions on all the files, you maybe sowly corrupting the permissions in the user portion of the registry making them unwrite/readable eventually leaving you with a highly customised but usless default profile.The only way to rectify this is to completly delete default profile and log in as a fresh user. This forces windows to recreate the default profile from scratch (the default default if you like) and then create the fresh user's profile from the new default default. Oh and did I mention you then have to make all the customisations you made from square one?! Time consuming? Oh yes!Also, manually deleteing a user's old profile can lead to a user unable to login and obtain a profile at all as windows believe it's profile is corrupt and thefore gives it the default default and ignores the actual default profile completly.... oh and it's only temporary so this problem doesn't go away unless you know the reg fix.....double, tripple ouch!Reg Fix...... Delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-????????????? where the correct key can be found by clicking on each one and looking at the entry ProfileImagePath which should contain the value C:\Users\[username] - Somewhat ironically, this is something the user profile tool does automatically when you use it to delete a profile so from this point of view, this tool still has some use, but only really if you were actively copying profiles in the first place. <sigh>So if you do choose mistah/Bill Kalt's method, don't give them a volley of abuse if it all goes wrong. You have been warned!Microsoft have said for a long time that they don't like people using the copy profile tool because of the percieved belief that it can damage profiles. It is my beliefe that the tool works perfectly as long as you use the tool and the tool only. I have never had a problem with the default profile using only this tool and I use it probably 5 or more times a week (XP through Vista). As soon as you start manually messing about with these files that's when the trouble starts. Unfortunately as far as I'm aware there has never been any documentation that says "Use the copy tool, the copy tool only and nothing but the copy tool unless you want to wreck your profiles" and so people have been accidently and naively been causing problems with their profiles. For some reason Microsoft has not tested this properly and taken these people at their word and seemingly ditch this wonderful time saving tool.What i really don't understand is this - If sysprep can do the perfect copy, why can't the copy tool be made to do the same without all the invasive generalising of the system? If manual editing/copying/deleteing of user files can screw up a profile and the default profile, can Sysprep fix this if the corruption exists? If it can, why can't that functionality be put into the copy tool? And if it can't, is it actually any better than the current copy tool? And if it isn't, are we all wasting our time with Sysprep only to end up with the same problems with the added risk of bricking the OS if Sysprep throws a complete wobbbler part way through it stomach churning recombobulation of the system?The simple answer is to transfer the imbedded tool of the almighty sysprep to the copy profile tool and makes us all happy again.....can it be that hard?! <--- (All responses mocking Microsofts inability to respond to customer feedback in any useful fasion are implied :P )Cheers,Matt
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 12th, 2010 7:27pm

... If sysprep can do the perfect copy, why can't the copy tool be made to do the same without all the invasive generalising of the system? If manual editing/copying/deleteing of user files can screw up a profile and the default profile, can Sysprep fix this if the corruption exists? If it can, why can't that functionality be put into the copy tool? And if it can't, is it actually any better than the current copy tool? And if it isn't, are we all wasting our time with Sysprep only to end up with the same problems with the added risk of bricking the OS if Sysprep throws a complete wobbbler part way through it stomach churning recombobulation of the system? I think that is exactly what Franklin was saying in his post. The code clearly exists to make this work. Theres no reason for it to be usable only via sysprep.If this code does something that the 'copy to..' code doesnt do, why the frack isnt it in the OS itself where we can use it in a less restrictive and cumbersome way.
January 16th, 2010 4:49am

For your information.... I got a response from microsoft on my PSS case and associated design change request on this function. Here's their response:QUOTEYour Aim: You requested a supported way to create user profile templates from modified templates and also a supported way of customising and making changes to the default profile within Windows 7 and 2008 R2. I want to assure you that you feedback has been sent to the product team and has visibility and it has been considered and this change has not been taken forward. The engineer has provided you with the following information and at this point there is no further information I am able to add. The only supported method is described in the following article below: How to customize default user profiles in Windows 7<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289> Configuring Default User Settings - Full Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2<http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/10/29/configuring-default-user-settings-full-update-for-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx> /QUOTEEvidence, if any was required, of how microsoft listens to its customers.B
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 17th, 2010 4:40pm

For your information.... I got a response from microsoft on my PSS case and associated design change request on this function. Here's their response:QUOTEYour Aim: You requested a supported way to create user profile templates from modified templates and also a supported way of customising and making changes to the default profile within Windows 7 and 2008 R2. I want to assure you that you feedback has been sent to the product team and has visibility and it has been considered and this change has not been taken forward. The engineer has provided you with the following information and at this point there is no further information I am able to add. The only supported method is described in the following article below: How to customize default user profiles in Windows 7<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289> Configuring Default User Settings - Full Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2<http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/10/29/configuring-default-user-settings-full-update-for-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx> /QUOTEEvidence, if any was required, of how microsoft listens to its customers.B Thanks for that. I guess they don't care to support customers who use Mandatory Roaming Profiles anymore. Those instructions are fine for changing the Default User but I modify 300 mandatory profiles on a regular basis. I cannot be making a new default user everytime I need to change them.lforbes
January 20th, 2010 2:04am

Use 'windows enabler'. it works just fine for making mandatory profiles by turning the 'copy' button back on.Thats what I'm doing.:)
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 20th, 2010 2:35am

Use 'windows enabler'. it works just fine for making mandatory profiles by turning the 'copy' button back on.Thats what I'm doing.:) Thanks. That is good to know. Interesting that Microsoft has gone out of it's way to make it impossible for techs like me to do our jobs without third party hacks. You would think they would WANT business' to upgrade to Windows 7 and therefore not throw up ridiculous obstacles like this one. Vista was so bad no one I know deployed it. Now Windows 7 improved in a few areas but then in many got even WORSE than Vista. Not surprised that Windows XP downgrades are still outselling Windows 7. I know we won't be deploying until XP is forced out. lforbes
January 20th, 2010 5:20pm

Darryl, In a nutshell, I work at an small school, I have no formal training in computers. I am an experienced hobbyist. I have teachers that have different printers, different software and Less experience. When I make any changes to their machines, I go in after the changes (as administrator) and copy my profile to the Default User. Done! Now you are telling me, that with Win7, I have to install and run sysprep, then do something to an ??.xml file to make my profile work?? Win 7 is touting itself as friendly. This IS NOT user friendly or something easily learned. If I cannot setup and run it without going to MS headquarters to learn how, then why change? I will stick to XP till Win 8, 9 or I die if this is not addressed (to us simple folks).
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 25th, 2010 11:18pm

Wow. This is extremely disappointing.
February 6th, 2010 10:03am

I have been working in a school district for 11 years. When I first started the district was running Windows 98. Windows 2000 was just released and I took it upon myself to learn it and develop a way to deploy it to the district. All my knowledge came from internet searches and trial and error. XP was released and again I was the first to load it and learn again how to deploy it to the district. The district has now grown to 3500 computers and we are still on XP. When Vista came out I was all for using it but did not want to deploy it as it required complex training to deploy it. The district refused to pay for any training and if it was not for some free training Microsoft supplied I would still not understand how to use the deployment workbench. Last year we were going to start deploying Vista when I recommended a hold until Windows 7 was released. I jumped on the first final release and was in gear to start to get it to the district. Stopped in my tracks was no way to set up a default profile. What I have been doing for the past 10 years was no longer available to me. Any current sales of Vista and Windows 7 require the user to log in and set up their personal settings. That is fine if it is your computer but when you have many units to be set up the same, you need to be able to set one up and them image it to all the others. I find this very hard to comprehend that the largest software vender in the world Microsoft has still not addressed this problem. How have they been able to write code for DOS to Windows 7 and not write code to develop a way to easily set up a default profile for Windows 7? The answer is that they do not care because if they did care a utility or a patch would have already been made available. I have no training in writing scripts and have no knowledge of the many registry settings that would need changing to set up a default profile. I do not have a budget from the school district and do not have the resources to pay for training to learn writing scripts or any training to modify all the registry settings. We use AD but that does not control first launch setups. AD does not control 3<sup>rd</sup> applications. The only way is to configure each application and then copy that profile to a default profile. I offer a challenge to Microsoft and any other software developer out there. Please write the code that makes a person deploying Windows 7 to easily set up the first launch of a new user to a standard determined by the owner of the computer. If I knew how to write code I would be writing it right now as I guarantee there will be a lot of people out there willing to buy it!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 12th, 2010 9:06pm

Ever since I started doing IT stuff for my job over 5 years ago, I have used copy profile to default profile trick. Not once have I ever had a problem with it, in all the years I used it. I am incredibly upset that in Windows 7 this is broken. I don't know what I can do to get around it. Why am I updated profiles so often? Many reasons. I encourage users to use Firefox for security purposes. It stores its configuration and addons in the user's profile. I set up Word templates, also in the user's profile. I set up printers. I put icons in specific locations so that they are logically grouped together (the Word document that contains the instructions for using the VPN are located next to the VPN icon). And so on. I'm not going to muck about with sysprep to do something as simple as copy a profile. The manual profile copy works okay, but not being able to change the desktop background is a big deal. Users will flip out if they can't change their background, and if the people in charge want to change their backgrounds, it has to happen. Microsoft, it can't be that hard to come up with a tool that will copy only the required registry settings and profile files to the default user, so as not to mess things up. Until I find a good workaround, frankly I don't know what I will do with getting Windows 7 out.
February 17th, 2010 1:20am

I don't know if I am going off topic here but for several years I have been rolling out clones of XP machines without using Sysprep by making an User account on a master exactly as I want it and using the 'copy over default' to ensure that all new User accounts created have the same settings. I then use Ghost to clone the image to a new machine & NewSID to make it the clone unique.Now that NewSID is not supported for Windows 7 it seems that Sysprep with Generalise is the only mechanism available to change the SID on the clone. Am I correct in thinking that this will also 'wipe out' all User accounts on the clone and recreate the Administrator account using the Default Profile?Many of the comments on this thread relate to a wish not to use Sysprep so (if this is the only way of changing the SID) am I correct in assuming that many people think it is not necessary to change the SID on the clones?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 8th, 2010 3:16am

Hi nialled, I can't speak specifiacally for Windows 7, but these are my experiences of using sysprep with Vista (and yes your post is a bit off topic, but does highlight some possible confusion with sysprep)..... Sysprep is a highly customisable tool as you can switch on/off protions so that it performs only specific tasks. As far as I am aware, sysprep will not "'wipe out' all User accounts on the clone", unless there is a specifc part of the xml customisation file that allows you to specify sysprep to delete profiles (I'm not sure there is such utility). "am I correct in assuming that many people think it is not necessary to change the SID on the clones?" ..... No sorry, changing the SID is mandatory if you wish to join the clones to a domain and not doing so may have other consequences I'm not aware of. Sysprep, by and large, for cloning purposes, is fine. It does have the habit of bricking the OS when it re-specialises on occasion (and on occasion I mean fairly rarely, and I stress, in my exerience. Others may have no issues with sysprep in this sense. We have some nasty hardware which may be a contributing factor). Once Sysprep has any errors during the speicalise phase, that PC can no longer be used to create an image as the generalise phase will not work. Also I find that once specialise errors occur, even though the PC will appear to operate correctly, some services take a very long time to start properly. From a profile point of view, which is the essence of this thread, Sysprep can be used to copy one profile to another (usually the default profile). You do this by specifying the correct commands in the xml customisation file. This does not delete any other profile and does not overwrite the administrator profile (unless you can tell it to). So on the face of it, this looks ok, but.....the problem I and many other people have is that to do this apparently fairly simple process, Sysprep still has to firstly generalise your machine and then respecialise it. This has two problems which one of my threads above details. The first is that the whole process takes between 10 - 15 minutes, dependant on hardware, where as the the old method using the copy profile tool took about 3 minutes. As admins, we prefer changes/improvements to take less time, not more, and especially not by a factor of 4 or 5 times. The second is that potential of bricking. The Sysprep process is a far larger and more complicated process than is required in order to copy a profile. It doesn't take an MS MVP or MSFT to know this (we've been doing it without Sysprep for years without issue!). If any part of the Sysprep process fails or returns an error (oh and btw, it doesn't flag up an error message to tell you, you have to proactively go and look for yourself), you master machine is now useless for creating images, until you deploy an image back to that machine and re specialises without error. Now depending on the size of your image, the imaging tool your using and you network speeds, that could take a few minutes to a few hours...still this is further extension of the original 3 minutes and depending at what point you found the image to be bricked, you may have already wasted hours making changes only to find you have to scrap them in order to re-deploy the same image and begin again. 3 minutes has turned to potentially hours....this is not better. No one has yet posted anywhere a viable argument for what it is that makes Sysprep a better tool than the old copy profile tool. MS have stated that the old tool was buggy....well....I have used it for years without problem, as have other users on the forum. I just follow some simple rules. 1) Only us the User profile tool to delete or copy profiles 2) In all cases where you can, use an application itself to make the necessary changes (i.e. run app, make changes to the way the application functions, close app) to the profile you are using that will later be copied to the default. If at all possible, do not manually edit the files/regkeys in this profile unless it is a matter of life and death...IT wise! It would seem that this is something that is too compleicated for MS to support. However, I would have thought supporting people in teaching them how to script Sysprep and deal with the pitfalls of the generalise and specialise phases would require a ____ of a lot more work. <shrug> who knows?! Hope this info was helpful. For any more information, reading this whole post in detail is useful and reading the responses to this blog post http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/10/29/configuring-default-user-settings-full-update-for-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx is also useful. Cheers, Matt
March 9th, 2010 1:00pm

I was able to get Windows Enabler 1.1 to copy my custom profile to the default user profile, but like others have said, I also got a blank desktop background for any standard user accounts created after that.Administrator accounts were able to receive the background without any problem, so that led me to believe that the desktop background was attempting to pull the img0.jpg file from a place that standard users do not have access to.I logged in as a standard user, and sure enough, I found this in the registry:HKCU -> Control Panel -> Desktop -> WallpaperI noticed that the entry was set to look into the profile folder for the custom profile that I made, except a standard user would not have access to view other profile settings.So, instead, I made a copy of img0.jpg and pasted it into the following folder:C:\Users\Public\Pictures\img0.jpgI then redirected the "HKCU -> Control Panel -> Desktop -> Wallpaper" setting in my custom profile to point to "C:\Users\Public\Pictures\img0.jpg". So, I log out of my custom profile, login as local admin, and copy my custom profile over the default profile. I log on as a standard user, and it worked just fine. Desktop is there, and all of my settings are there as well.I'm about to make an image of the machine, so hopefully this will work without too many errors down the road..
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 9th, 2010 6:46pm

I don't know if I am going off topic here but for several years I have been rolling out clones of XP machines without using Sysprep by making an User account on a master exactly as I want it and using the 'copy over default' to ensure that all new User accounts created have the same settings. I then use Ghost to clone the image to a new machine & NewSID to make it the clone unique.Now that NewSID is not supported for Windows 7 it seems that Sysprep with Generalise is the only mechanism available to change the SID on the clone. Am I correct in thinking that this will also 'wipe out' all User accounts on the clone and recreate the Administrator account using the Default Profile?Many of the comments on this thread relate to a wish not to use Sysprep so (if this is the only way of changing the SID) am I correct in assuming that many people think it is not necessary to change the SID on the clones? Actually SYSPREP for XP is pretty neat. I recommend having a look at it. It does far more than set the SID. As someone who images about 400 machines a year I have had lots of experience with it since 2000.The lovely thing about SYSPREP for imaging is that I can get ONE image to go across as many platforms as I want (Just put an image from a Dell GX240 (7 yrs old) onto a Dell Optiplex 380 (newest model) and an IBM and Compaq. I don't have to have separate images for different hardware. I just add the driver locations into SYSPREP and then make sure there is a driver folder on the original image.However, I NEVER want to have to run Sysprep for the profile settings that I modify probably a few times a week, and I have 300 mandatory ones. The Windows Enabler tool sounds cool. I am just hoping someone will be able to find the registry key that "greys" out the copy profile button so we can enable it with a registry patch.Currently I am testing Windows 7 and documenting everything I find and the hacks I find.lforbes
March 10th, 2010 9:19pm

Matt. Thanks for the reply. You are quite correct, I have since tried sysprepping a Win7 machine & it didn't delete all the accounts. In light of this I can kind of see why people want to copy a profile other than the Administrator.What I was really getting at was that in XP, the Profile 'Copy To' Button - Ghost - NewSID approach was an excellent way of cloning customised machines. Every cloned machine would have the same look & feel regardless of which user logged in.In Win7 MSFT seem to be actively trying to stop people from using the Profile 'Copy To' Button and making us use Sysprep to copy a Profile instead (which I have tried & does seem to work provided you are logged in as the Administrator). As far as I can tell, since the 'demise' of NewSID, the only way to randomise the SID is to use Sysprep which will also copy a profile if the copyprofile=true flag is set. So, if they are going to have to use Sysprep anyway, why is it so important to do use the Copy Profile Button (especially when MSFT say that they believe it could lead to future problems)?I suspect that this is why MSFT is not willing to do anything about the greyed out button in spite of all the User protestations.Incidentally, I am not so sure about the necessity for SIDs to be unique, especially on machines which are subsequently joined to a Domain but that definitely is a topic for another thread.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 11th, 2010 2:28pm

[...]Incidentally, I am not so sure about the necessity for SIDs to be unique, especially on machines which are subsequently joined to a Domain but that definitely is a topic for another thread. Forget everything you know about SIDs and cloning:http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2009/11/03/3291024.aspx Regards, Thomas
March 11th, 2010 6:33pm

I'm running Win Pro 64. I used the Enabler utility referred to earlier in this thread which restored the "greyed out" Copy to button on the Advanced Profiles page to copy a user profile with Admin privileges to a new non-admin user profile. It took a long time but completed successfully. When I attempt logon to the new copied user account I receive: "The Group Policy Client service failed the logon. Access is denied" and then I get logged off. Any ideas on what I need to do differently to do this or how to resolve this? Thanks.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 11th, 2010 9:39pm

I'm running Win Pro 64. I used the Enabler utility referred to earlier in this thread which restored the "greyed out" Copy to button on the Advanced Profiles page to copy a user profile with Admin privileges to a new non-admin user profile. It took a long time but completed successfully. When I attempt logon to the new copied user account I receive:"The Group Policy Client service failed the logon. Access is denied" and then I get logged off. Any ideas on what I need to do differently to do this or how to resolve this? Thanks. Usually the copy utility copies a profile to overwrite the default profile or to create a new mandatory roaming or roaming profile for users. It doesn't sound like it is going to work the way you have described.For Windows XP I would create my desired profile and copy it to a network location. I would then logon as a local user (and it would create the users folder based on the default). I then would copy the INSIDES of the copied profile from the network location overtop of the one on the workstation. That works fine with XP and from what I have tested with Windows 7 as well. However, you can't use the copy profile to another users profile directly.You can also try to set permissions on the users profile so that user had full-Control.lforbes
March 12th, 2010 4:05am

Hi all, nialled :- " So, if they are going to have to use Sysprep anyway, why is it so important to do use the Copy Profile Button (especially when MSFT say that they believe it could lead to future problems)?" - For the reasons I have talked about ... sysprep takes far too long, does far too much to your installtion than is necessary and can occasionally brick it. I have had no issue with the copy profile tool, copying over the default profile for 5 years as mentioned previously. nialled and Whissi - " I am not so sure about the necessity for SIDs to be unique" (nialled) & "Forget everything you know about SIDs and cloning:" Whissi - Yes this is quite right, the real thing I meant to point to was the GUID which sysprep does change (crossed wires I admit)....two machines with the same GUID connected tot he same domain will cause conflicts. For example, when you try to add AD users or groups to local graops on the machine that was added last, the AD objects will not add properly and usually disappear all together from the local groups. kerwinlive - Sorry for repeating myself in this post, but I have had no issue with the copy profile tool, copying over the default profile for 5 years. I have also mentioned that you need to make as few manual changes to the files and reg keys in the profile that's to be copied as possible. I understand that it can be necessary, but if an application or the profile tool can do it, use that. Also, and possibly more importantly from a "The Group Policy Client service failed the logon. Access is denied" point of view, you must not manually delete profile folders. By doing this you do not delete a vital key in the registry which the delete profile tool does. By manually deleting a profile folder you leave behind the key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\[User SID] which contains the entry ProfileImagePath. This entry points to the location of your profile. If you have manually deleted it, the logon service cannot find your profile, throws a wobbly, puts up a meaningless error (i.e., it's not corrupt, it's just not there) and confuses the administrator. I'm not sying this is definately what's happened here, but it might have and is well worth checking, because once youmake the copy profile tool your friend, you'll wonder why you're wasting so much time with sysprep. Basically, I'd be happy to use the sysprep tool for copying profiles if......a) it didn't generalise and then specialise each time....I'm sure this is uneccessary and therefore a waste of time, b) it didn't reboot the PC....no service, system file is being altered. If a locked file is being altered, then running the process whilst being logged off should get around this, i.e. Sysprep logs off the account and does the work as the System user (MS fixed the issue in XP where the OS can hold onto files in a profile, even when the user is logged off when they released Vista), c) copying a profile shouldn't require indepth knowledge of using a very invasive utility that can do allsorts to your system if you don't specify the xml file properly, as sysprep can. When you solve these three points, you end up back at the simple, but easy to use copy profile tool. I rest my case! :) Cheers, Matt
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 12th, 2010 1:02pm

Hi lforbes and thanks for your response. I've given the new user ownership and all permissions on the \Users\newname directory structure but I still cannot logon with that id. Strange. I guess I'll go back to the manual copy although when I did that earlier the desktop settings, taskbar mods, etc did not come over so I wondered exactly what I was copying over if I had to tailor everything again for the new account.
March 12th, 2010 4:10pm

Hello all, I have always been using the manual way ever since MS hide the "copy to" button, that is manually copy the c:\users\user_i_want and rename it as Default users until I come across this thread. I tested the Windows Enabler on a Windows 2008 R2 and I can say that it works for me. Howerver, after I used the "copy to" and create a new local user, I found that when I test using the new user I found it lagging. Does this happen to anyone? Also, just to make sure that I am not missing any details, has anyone experience any significant error with this besides the black background and is there a potential effect this may cause?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 15th, 2010 9:43pm

Hi, I myself have been using the "copy" button from Windows 2000 through to the now Windows 7. I have used it in many organisations in Australia, mining, gas, education, government and many many SMB'S. Never once, have I ever experienced an issue "doing it" this way. And to have someone (Microsoft) say otherwise in my ten years of experience with multiple networks and enterprises is a joke. The sysprep process has cost many of my client’s excess money for the sysprep process to be now done by myself for SOE / MOE etc.. It has wasted my time and more so the productivity of the clients is now wasted. I don't benefit at all from the additional time onsite to work on such issues, reputation is tarnished instead. Much the same as: · DFS and Windows 7 Libraries don't work, · GPP with printer deployment can add upto 2minutes for logon time (in comparison for the same printers deployed via vbscript at logon which takes about 14 seconds) · And finally "getting it right" for KMS type clients in respect to sysprep, configuring the right keys and so on.. I can understand MS protecting the KMS side of things, but make it easier - like windows should be. The GPP - great feature - make sure it works better than previous methods before touting it as a great thing. DFS - fix it, I have clients who are crying for this, the work around is to reghack and disable libraries until an update to the Windows Desktop Search service (if ever..) Thanks for your time in reading this; it’s about 0.1% of the time I have wasted in comparison to addressing these issues.
April 20th, 2010 10:34am

Hello all, I agree with the majority here. I encountered this issue way back when RTM was released. I can't rely on the RC/Betas being consistent as many of you have found. I have asked MSFT to change this along with the prompting for Computer Name in Sysprep but to no avail. When imaging and configuring desktops there is no reason why I should go through a sysprep process to copy a profile. That just doesn't make sense. It would seem that MSFT are ignoring the fact that this stuff just doesn't work and if it does work then the answer/process is buried in mounds of Technet misinformation. Many of our issues are related to configuring Application first run Q and A so that future users don't get stupid prompts to Sign Up or Opt Out of a survey or RSS Feed. That and Desktop organization is what the button is all about for me. Also, I have got the sysprep copy profile to work but it does not produce a difference in the result that would prevent me from using the WindowEnabler and registry hack method. The ShellFolders are still assigned to the profile name that was copied to the Default Profile regardless of how it was copied. Legacy applications still use this key to find your default folder locations. This stuff is basic and should be made so. A simple tool from MSFT that copies the profile PROPERLY would be all that is needed given that the CopyTo button method is deprecated. A Sysprep mechanism that asks for the Computer Name during syspreped deployment would also not be a difficult thing. What is annoying is that we have an Operating System that was close to being sorted in all these respects - XP. GPO, Logon Scripts, Profile Copying and image deployment. Then, the replacement comes along, which was a dog, followed by the next and we are back to square one not having really learnt anything. Off, learning new ways to do the same things and doing MSFT User Acceptance Testing along the way. I am sure that once we have all figured out how to do this stuff seamlessly and consistently once Service Pack XX has been released we will be all asked to start again with the next replacement. Sigh...... Matt
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 21st, 2010 2:49am

No news from Microsoft on that issue ? Unbelievable. I've played a bit with "Windows Enabler" to ungrey the copy button to copy a profile over the default profile Copying profile is then possible and looks OK. Although Junction points are then not present. (see below the script to recreate them) On new profiles created afterward from my custom default, Libraries seems to point to the wrong location (default profile source) but opening a library once and the location is "automagically" updated to the correct location... Shellfolders of new profiles are OK. I think we're back in business. ----------------- Scripts to re-create Junctions in your custom default profile mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Application Data" c:\users\Default\AppData\Roaming icacls "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Cookies" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies icacls "c:\users\Default\Cookies" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Cookies" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Cookies" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local icacls "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\My Documents" C:\Users\Default\Documents icacls "c:\users\Default\My Documents" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\My Documents" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\My Documents" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\NetHood" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts" icacls "c:\users\Default\NetHood" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\NetHood" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\NetHood" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Printer Shortcuts" icacls "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Recent" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent icacls "c:\users\Default\Recent" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Recent" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Recent" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\SendTo" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo icacls "c:\users\Default\SendTo" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\SendTo" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\SendTo" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu" icacls "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Templates" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates icacls "c:\users\Default\Templates" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Templates" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Templates" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files" icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" /L mklink /J "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" C:\Users\Default\Music icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" /L mklink /J "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" C:\Users\Default\Pictures icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" /L mklink /J "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Videos" C:\Users\Default\Videos icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Videos" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Videos" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "C:\Users\Default\Documents My Videos" /L
April 23rd, 2010 12:16pm

Thanks for everyone's hard work and great help on finding a work around for this major headache with Windows 7 profile issue. I hope the SP1 will address this problem. The Windows Enabler work for me as well, but I did about a 2-5 minute delay before it ungreyed. The background loaded for me as well, but I give admin right to all my users and if the mess up their computer I'm not rescuing there files. Here is a some nice free Windows 7 tools - http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20003326-12.html?tag=nl.e404 or http://www.thewindowsclub.com/category/tips Sniffles530
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 30th, 2010 1:27am

No news from Microsoft on that issue ? Unbelievable. I've played a bit with "Windows Enabler" to ungrey the copy button to copy a profile over the default profile Copying profile is then possible and looks OK. Although Junction points are then not present. (see below the script to recreate them) On new profiles created afterward from my custom default, Libraries seems to point to the wrong location (default profile source) but opening a library once and the location is "automagically" updated to the correct location... Shellfolders of new profiles are OK. I think we're back in business. ----------------- Scripts to re-create Junctions in your custom default profile mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Application Data" c:\users\Default\AppData\Roaming icacls "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Cookies" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies icacls "c:\users\Default\Cookies" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Cookies" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Cookies" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local icacls "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Local Settings" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\My Documents" C:\Users\Default\Documents icacls "c:\users\Default\My Documents" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\My Documents" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\My Documents" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\NetHood" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network Shortcuts" icacls "c:\users\Default\NetHood" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\NetHood" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\NetHood" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Printer Shortcuts" icacls "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\PrintHood" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Recent" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent icacls "c:\users\Default\Recent" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Recent" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Recent" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\SendTo" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo icacls "c:\users\Default\SendTo" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\SendTo" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\SendTo" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu" icacls "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Start Menu" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\Templates" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates icacls "c:\users\Default\Templates" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\Templates" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\Templates" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Application Data" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\History" /L mklink /J "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files" icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "c:\users\Default\AppData\Local\Temporary Internet Files" /L mklink /J "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" C:\Users\Default\Music icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Music" /L mklink /J "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" C:\Users\Default\Pictures icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Pictures" /L mklink /J "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Videos" C:\Users\Default\Videos icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Videos" /setowner SYSTEM /L icacls "C:\Users\Default\Documents\My Videos" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L attrib +H +S +I "C:\Users\Default\Documents My Videos" /L Are you saying that if I highlight this code and paste it into a vbs script it will fix the paths?
April 30th, 2010 1:32am

After reading through this loooong post of problems, gripes rants and raves, I've figured a few things out. A lot of you are quite set in your ways, and your ways weren't very good. Wrong even! It seems apparent to me that MS has had enough of techs using creative (read: unsupported & problematic) methods of creating clone images and getting blamed for the resulting unstable systems. I know numerous techs who assume that the problems they encounter on a regular basis are normal Windows issues and never associate them with their badly constructed master clone image. It looks like MS is pulling in the reigns on this practice with Win7 and is forcing everyone to either INSTALL (as a home user would from a CD) or DEPLOY (as a business enterprise would from a server). There is no more in-between game playing. Copying a profile into the Default User profile was NEVER SUPPORTED because (no matter what you may think) it did not work and caused problems. If you think you never had problems doing this then you never made the connection between your problems and their root cause. You DID have problems. There are many specific User ID, SID, name & code references in the user profile. A dumb copy of a profile into Default User creates a lot of cross-references in all profiles. I think the root of the confusion is that quite amazingly, the cross-reference errors in user profiles didn't blow WinXP up right away. The machine would appear to function, however the cross reference errors in the profiles would progressively result in additional reference errors until a critical mass is reached and the user encounters odd issues and fatal errors after 4-12 months of use. The connection was never made between the progressively unstable machines and the overwrite of the Default User Profile in the image creation process, yet that is the root cause. The ones who built the master image thinks Windows "just does that". Not true, it's just your impropperly built "never had a problem" image that does that. I think the bottom line is rather obvious and makes a lot of sense from MS's point of view: Microsoft is standardizing deployment of Win7 in the business enterprise environment by forcing everyone to do it the same way (i.e the correct and supported way), or not use enterprise deployment features at all. Win7 installed from CD are for Home users who will manually configure everything, deployment utils are limited. Win7 installed from MDT are for Enterprise users who will use some to all deployment utilities. Everything in between is prohibited, so pick one. TO ANSWER THE ORIGINAL QUESTION... Please do not even THINK about using "Windows Enabler". The button is disabled for a reason. Do not re-enable it with Windows Enabler. When a beach has a sign "NO SWIMMING - SHARKS!", if you remove the sign it will not remove the sharks. Don't hack your way to stupid. There is no supported method of modifying Default User Profile if Win7 is installed from CD. CD installations of Win7 are only to be performed by home users and modifying the Default User Profile in a home user environment is neither desirable or supported. (IMO, Microsoft has not done a good job of making this clear) To modify the Default User Profile in an Enterprise Distribution of Win7: You MUST start by deploying Win7 to a reference machine using the MDT (Microsoft Deployment Toolkit). Create an UNATTEND.XML file with the Windows 7 AIK (Automated Installation Kit). Configure the UNATTEND.XML file to contain the Copy Profile parameter. Adjust an admin profile as desired, run SYSPREP with the UNATTEND.XML file while logged in to the modified profile. Exact procedures from MS can be found below. KB973289: How to customize a default user profile in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008R2 How to turn the default user profile into a network default user profile in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2 How to turn the default user profile into a mandatory user profile in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008R2
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 11th, 2010 11:56pm

Most people don't have an issue with utilizing the proscribed method during image creation and initial deployment. The problem arises after the machines have been deployed. They want a method that will replicate the changes they desire consistently and predictably. Sysprep has a tendency to undo user customizations and put things back the way Microsoft wants them to be. This, combined with the time required to sysprep a machine, or a few thousand deployed machines, is the source of the resistance being voiced in this thread. Thus far, I have not seen anyone address the issue of modifying the default user profile after the machines have been deployed.
May 13th, 2010 5:13am

If you don't buy the prescribed method I copied my administrator account to the default while they were both offline and new accounts create the way I want them to, if you want a custom wallpaper you need to have it located somewhere in the account folder. Junction redirecting points are lost so use the script. No symptoms as of yet so let's give it some time.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 13th, 2010 5:41am

If you don't buy the prescribed method I copied my administrator account to the default while they were both offline and new accounts create the way I want them to, if you want a custom wallpaper you need to have it located somewhere in the account folder. Junction redirecting points are lost so use the script. No symptoms as of yet so let's give it some time.
May 13th, 2010 5:41am

@SpliceTheMainBrace Personally I find your post a little offensive (all these you's, CAPITAL LETTERS and comments like "set in your ways, wrong even") and it misses the point that everyone is trying to make here. We all know the copy profile method is buggy. We all know that used without care it causes issues and the creeping death effect. I think mist of us know that the creeping death is casued by the unique references made in the registry don't generally sit well in other users' profiles. I think most who have been using the copy profile tool regularly for some time know these things, make efforts to avoid too much pollution of uniqueness and don't have problems. (Like myself, 5 years of copying profiles regularly each week without a sniff of an issue). The biggest problem with the sysprep method is, and I'm repeating this for the umpteenth time is..... It syspreps your PC to essentially do some copying... Why is this bad? A) It takes 4 to 5 times longer - If you have to copy profiles a lot as I do, this is very bad. B) Syspreping is very invasive to your machine, it strips out a lot of details, removes it from the domain (part of why it take so long for the PC to complete the task) and if during it's protracted and unescessary reconfiguring when copying a profile an error occurs, that's it, your machine is dead in the water, there is no way back except to drop an image back on the machine, make all the changes again and hope sysprep doesn't hurl a spanner in the works. Sysprep is used to remove the personality of a computer so it's ready for cloning, to clone a profile, you shouldn't need to remove the computer's personality (common sense?). Therefore if sysprep can do a perfect copy profile, why can't this be the copy profile tool instead and not waste time striping out computer personality and domain info which surely isn;t required? I don't think anyone particularly wants to stick with the old method when a supported method exists that does indeed work. What people want is a tool that works, does all it needs to do to do the task, doesn't interfere with anything else and is quick. The current method does 3 out of 4 really well and 1 well if you're careful. The new method does one 1 of 4 well and completly fails on the other 3. This is why people don't like the new method and don't particularly want to switch. Nothing to do with being stuck in their ways, assuming it's all MS's fault, missing the obvious or swimming with sharks. We just want something that's easy to use (oh hang on that's the 5th thing sysprep is bad at!) and quick. Cheers, Matt
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 13th, 2010 1:55pm

The biggest problem with the sysprep method is, and I'm repeating this for the umpteenth time is..... It syspreps your PC to essentially do some copying... Why is this bad? A) It takes 4 to 5 times longer - If you have to copy profiles a lot as I do, this is very bad. B) Syspreping is very invasive to your machine, it strips out a lot of details, removes it from the domain (part of why it take so long for the PC to complete the task) and if during it's protracted and unescessary reconfiguring when copying a profile an error occurs, that's it, your machine is dead in the water, there is no way back except to drop an image back on the machine, make all the changes again and hope sysprep doesn't hurl a spanner in the works. Sysprep is used to remove the personality of a computer so it's ready for cloning, to clone a profile, you shouldn't need to remove the computer's personality (common sense?). Therefore if sysprep can do a perfect copy profile, why can't this be the copy profile tool instead and not waste time striping out computer personality and domain info which surely isn;t required? I don't think anyone particularly wants to stick with the old method when a supported method exists that does indeed work. What people want is a tool that works, does all it needs to do to do the task, doesn't interfere with anything else and is quick. The current method does 3 out of 4 really well and 1 well if you're careful. The new method does one 1 of 4 well and completly fails on the other 3. This is why people don't like the new method and don't particularly want to switch. Nothing to do with being stuck in their ways, assuming it's all MS's fault, missing the obvious or swimming with sharks. We just want something that's easy to use (oh hang on that's the 5th thing sysprep is bad at!) and quick. Cheers,Matt I couldn't have summed it up better myself. Matt has made some awesome points. SYSPREP will kill a machine faster than the Copy Profile will mess up a Default profile. The difference is SYSPREP bugs aren't recoverable. Adding on is an Administrator put in charge of managing a Domain environment SHOULD have the skills to be able to clean up the "issues" in a default user profile. Those listed as "problems in this article http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/archive/2009/10/29/configuring-default-user-settings-full-update-for-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx state that the only "problems" are *Their list of most frequently run programs/documents is not cleared (Done by clearing out the RECENT folder and the pinned list (I actually add programs here)) *Whether the user has been introduced to the Start menu (will be set to TRUE for the source account, but should be FALSE for new users). *Windows Explorer does some special things the first time you log on to introduce you to the Start menu and other new features. (Umm everyone HATES these if Microsoft doesn't know. I want them disabled) *Whether the user is an administrator (and should therefore see the Administrative Tools, etc). (Done by moving the Administrative Tools OUT of the All Users and into the "administrator" profile where it should be in the first place) *The personalized name for “My Documents” will be incorrect. All users documents folders will be called “Administrator's Documents”. (You don't think we have heard of deleting the desktop.ini files? I mean really how dumb do you think we are?) *The default download directory for IE will be set to the Administrator's Desktop folder. (No the Default is set to My Documents regardless of location path) *The default Save and Open locations for some application with point to the Administrator's documents folder. (Not if Folder Redirection is in place OR if you modified the paths in the SHELL Common Folders) *Windows 7 Libraries are broken. (Actually they work just fine if Folder Redirection is in place) or you just have to modify the xml or disable them completely) Microsoft spends far TOO much time trying to protect Network Administrators from "lack of knowledge" they "think" they have and in doing so screws it up for the admins who actually know what they are doing. I think they need to start giving us some credit and stop trying to prevent us from actually DOING our jobs. Network Administrators are not home users and shouldn't be treated as such and that is what they have done with Vista and Windows 7 Pro. If I wanted an idiot box that was difficult to manage I would have gone with Mac in my network. lforbes
May 13th, 2010 7:08pm

As stated earlier in this thread, the scenario that was previously used to replace the Default User Profile (overwriting via the User Profile Control Panel applet) was unsupported in Windows Vista and unsupported in Windows XP. There were many issues with it in the prior OS’s, even though those issues were not always apparent, they did exist and caused inconsistencies and lingering problems. For Domain joined systems, an alternative exists that in many cases will provide a centralized way to update user profiles and accomplish the same tasks that many of you are seeking: Group Policy Preferences. In contrast to policy settings, preferences allow users to change them after you’ve deployed them, they are unmanaged. Additionally, deploying some preferences for users could be a necessity in locked-down environments. Organizations have deployed preferences in a variety of ways, most commonly default user profiles, reg files, and logon scripts. Including preferences in Windows images is also common. In any case, most methods for deploying preferences are decentralized and ‘high touch’. In contrast to the less IT-friendly methods for deploying preferences, Group Policy preferences add to Group Policy a centralized system for deploying preferences. It provides the means to simplify deployment, reduce configuration errors, and reduce IT costs. Rather than using the steps described earlier to deploy mapped drives, for example, you simply create a Group Policy object and edit its Drive Maps preference item. Group Policy preferences do not require you to install any services on servers. Windows Server 2008 includes Group Policy preferences by default as part of the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). Administrators will also be able to configure and deploy Group Policy preferences in a Windows Server 2003 environment by installing the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) on a computer running Windows Vista with SP1. You can download the whitepaper that describes Group Policy Preferences here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=42e30e3f-6f01-4610-9d6e-f6e0fb7a0790&displaylang=en. This white paper describes Group Policy preferences—its features, the differences between policy settings and preferences, and the many benefits of using this new technology. If there are specific customizations that you made using the old method to replace the Default User Profile that you cannot make with Group Policy Preferences, you can email them to me: PLeBlanc@*microsoft.com (remove the *) Note that Group Policy preferences will not address creation of Mandatory Profiles and some other settings may still require the supported method of customizing the Default User profile. This article points to the supported way of updating the Default User profile: 959753 How to customize the default local user profile when you prepare an image of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;959753 PaulPaul LeBlanc MSFT
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 20th, 2010 2:04pm

Hi Paul, Thanks for the info and this is all very true. But when you have 150+ non microsoft applications on a single PC (yes we are an extreme, but Universities have a lot of different factions with a lot of different needs), how would you suggest customising all of these through GP preferences so that each user logging on got the same experience? I'm guessing you could do a lot of scripts to copy/edit files and edit the registry, but with students regularly hot desking, we really don't want many many logon scripts fixing apps everytime a user logs on (PC's are used for very short amounts of time by a single user) which could massievly delay the logon time, which is already not great. If we can possibly speed up logon times, then that's an option we'd want to take. By having applications preconfigured as far as possible, we can keep logon times to a minimum and also it reduces the need for users to learn complicated and unecessary setup/configuration steps everytime they use an application on a hotdesk PC (and students only have access to hotdesk PC's). I can hear a distant call of "use roaming profiles". Uh, simply put, no, no way, never ever. Software vendors aren't clever enough to understand them, especially in the education world where Joe Bloggs and his nonexistant software skills (not to mention his nonexistant support skills) develops applications to cover niche areas where there is no alternative. More often than not, these apps cause horrific problems in roaming profiles, especially where more than one version exists in the institution (and more than one version often exists for good reason). The clashes you end up spending your whole time troubleshooting make it easier to go for preconfigure and local only profiles with folder redirection. But now as preconfiguring apps has been made much harder, it would seem that either you have to waste time and risk bricking a PC with sysprep or you have to make everyone's experience a horror at logon with umpteen scripts running to make sure your apps look the way you expect them too. Paul, we don't want to use the copy profile tool anymore, we understand it has problems. What we do want is the process in sysprep that does the profile copying extracted from sysprep and put in place of the current copy profile tool. No stripping of computer identity, no removal from the domain, no reboot, no reconfiguring of identity and no rejoing the domain....just the profile copy....please (and don't make me beg, becasue I will. When it comes to this, I'm not proud.) Not everything can be solved by GPO's, GP Pref's, scripts and file copies. There very much is a place for an easy to use profile copy tool. Cheers, Matt p.s. Paul, I'd love to send you all the customisations but do you really know how to configure Exceed Hummingbird, PuTTY, ChemBio Office, AutoCAD, MatLAB, Pro II, ArcGIS, Salford Fortran Compilers, Endnote, Reference Manager, Zoom Text, NVivo, Respondus, SigmaPlot, SPSS, Mathcad, Satelite ToolKit, etc, etc ,etc........................? I'd be very surprised, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
May 20th, 2010 4:08pm

I just went through this nightmare last week with Win 7 Pro RTM. I spent 3 days trying to get a default profile working and had little success. The sysprep copyprofile option DOES NOT copy over start menu, taskbar, or quick launch settings (yes, my users love the old quick launch and I want to give it to them). The start menu for all new users displays the default (useless) shortcuts, and the quick launch disappears completely. Any icons pinned to the taskbar go away and only the 3 default remain. I tried running sysprep while in audit mode, not in audit mode, after joined to a domain, etc... Same result each time. About the only things that were retained were the theme and basic OS settings like power options. On another note - WHY did they take away support for naming the computer BEFORE it is joined to the domain during mini setup? I thought maybe they would have fixed that since Vista, but no. No, I don't want my computers named after the GUID or anything else. No, I am not going to pre-stage my computers. Who has time for that? I want to specify the name and then have it auto join the domain like I did with XP. The sysprep computername option will prompt for a name... AFTER it joines the domain using whatever name it chose for the PC. I had to use a 3rd party tool (MySysprep) just to regain that feature. I agree with most of you in that Vista and 7 were designed for HOME USE. They need to get back to the NT/95 days - give the corporate world a streamlined, configurable OS and leave the eye candy fluff for home use. I understand that it is easier to have one OS, but you'd think they could see the writing on the wall by now by lack of corps upgrading.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 26th, 2010 5:11am

On another note - WHY did they take away support for naming the computer BEFORE it is joined to the domain during mini setup? I thought maybe they would have fixed that since Vista, but no. No, I don't want my computers named after the GUID or anything else. No, I am not going to pre-stage my computers. Who has time for that? I want to specify the name and then have it auto join the domain like I did with XP. The sysprep computername option will prompt for a name... AFTER it joines the domain using whatever name it chose for the PC. I had to use a 3rd party tool (MySysprep) just to regain that feature. I agree with most of you in that Vista and 7 were designed for HOME USE. They need to get back to the NT/95 days - give the corporate world a streamlined, configurable OS and leave the eye candy fluff for home use. I understand that it is easier to have one OS, but you'd think they could see the writing on the wall by now by lack of corps upgrading. OMG Are you kidding? How on earth is that going to work for Network Admins???? I setup my Computer accounts in AD BEFORE I image the machines or the names exist because I re-image every year. Therefore they are in the right OU's added to the right Groups etc. When it asks for the Computer name in XP Sysprep, you put in the one that exists in AD and it automatically takes over that name. However, AD will NOT take over a computer name on a rename. Therefore it has to have the name BEFORE it joins the domain for it to work. I am going to start a separate thread on this one. I haven't played with SYSPREP yet for Imaging. I am just trying to get the profiles to work. Winenabler does the trick BTW and you can copy the shortcuts manually to the start menu. I am guessing they had Non-Admins design Windows 7 because they don't see to have ANY clue on what we need to do our jobs! Edited to add I found this: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-CA/w7itproinstall/thread/c4485f7b-21fa-4535-9950-ae5ca4065b64 lforbes
May 27th, 2010 4:16am

I followed every article by microsoft step by step and it wont work. Could someone please post an example of the xml file that worked for them?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 10th, 2010 4:40am

Hi, Any chance you found a solution? I'm in the same boat with over 1200 student,facutly, & staff machines to deal with. Love Windows 7, but not for the work enviroment! :-(
June 17th, 2010 4:59pm

Darrell and Paul, your answers to this issue are not acceptable. A 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services farm, for example, to provide MS and non-MS applications cannot be expected to be sysprep'ed every time we need to make a change to a setting that needs to be contained within the default user profile. No more than already deployed and in-use workstations cannot be expected to be syspreped because of an application change or install. Sure, virtual software layers and your recommended sysprep method are ideal, but we're talking real-world, business critical systems. Group Policy Preferences is great for standard OS tweaks to the start menu and such, but adds no value compared to the old, "unsupported" method which many people have never had issues with over time, myself one of them. A more feasable, as easy, and supported method as many people have described above (the unsupported click to copy, or the CopyProfile functionality from sysprep provided on it's own, without changing anything else on the system) is being requested by your customers. Please treat that request as such.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 17th, 2010 11:59pm

I agree, we need a local method of copying a profile to the default. users are not that independent. it could be used as a support tool etc. Requiring a sysprep to make the change when Microsoft has limited the number of times that sysprep can be used is a paradox plus other words as well. Dianethank you, Diane
June 22nd, 2010 10:31pm

Hi, Any chance you found a solution? I'm in the same boat with over 1200 student,facutly, & staff machines to deal with. Love Windows 7, but not for the work enviroment! :-( Windows Enabler works to unlock the copy button. Just google it. You have to clean it up a bit after with deleting the desktop.ini's and extra shortcuts etc but it works. I have also successfully converted an XP profile into a 7 one manually. Microsoft just gives a default without pulling ANY of the XP profile and I needed the 1000 custom registry entries from the XP ntuser.dat without trying to reset them. I am documenting it all on my site. http://www.sd61.bc.ca/windows2000 The ONLY difference in the ntuser.dat is the Explorer key with all the new paths. Once you convert that the rest is the same.lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 25th, 2010 7:47am

Its fine thta it is "unsupported " but i have yet to find anyone who has had the copyprofile work. any sugestions? I get Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup].
June 28th, 2010 8:35pm

have you gotten CopyProflie to work? i keep getting Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup].
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 28th, 2010 8:38pm

is there an easy readbale guide to what choices there are in an unttend.xml? I wnat to have a printer or electronic list to show what chaoies there are and to mapp what choies we want to make
June 28th, 2010 8:39pm

I got to agree here. Everything I've seen so far with Windows 7 tells me that Microsoft no longer cares about education environments. This problem and a lack of a Windows SteadyState replacement pretty much gives me this impression. Been messing with this issue for weeks now, and the only solution I'm seeing that makes any sense is Windows XP. Period. I don't know what MS is thinking with this default user profile mess, but unless something is done to make default user handling easier for us, then 7 is not an option for us. I just spent 2 weeks staring at the WAIK, and it's just a absolute mess. There's a ton of settings, none of which have any useful documentation, and is basically overkill for something as simple as a profile copy and deployment that used to be as simple as make profile, copy profile, ghost, ghostwalk, and done. So far, I've tried Sysprep 8 times, It that process, I've had parse errors, total failure to boot, profile settings missing, browser plug-in failures with quicklime and firefox add-on's failing, and let's not even begin talking about setting up lab printers and making the correct one the default. I'd try it more if it didn't take so long to recover from the aftermath left behind. (Basically got to ghost over the failure with a non syspreped image) Also, I don't like the idea of sysprepping a lab everytime I have to update something on the default profile to allow professors to do their job. As for GPO's I'd love to use them, but since they only cover MS products and nothing else, their basically useless as a copyprofile replacement. Also, although we join these system to a domain, we don't manage them with active directory or remote mandatory profiles, so managing software installs, printers and other settings is not an option for us. What we need is either a tool to scrub and copy a profile correctly into the default user profile which doesn't need sysprep, or a way to make a user profile and designate it the default user profile for anyone else that logs in with no need to copy profiles.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 28th, 2010 5:14am

Hi, So there is way to copy a Win7 profile..In fact rather than copy i'll show you how to create a default customized profile in order that each new user created will logon with all defined parameters in the default profile. You'll find the complete solutions in my web site http://www.jcquirin.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:windows-7-copier-un-profil-creer-un-profil-par-defaut&catid=34:cat-systeme
August 13th, 2010 12:46pm

Hi, So there is way to copy a Win7 profile..In fact rather than copy i'll show you how to create a default customized profile in order that each new user created will logon with all defined parameters in the default profile. You'll find the complete solutions in my web site http://www.jcquirin.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:windows-7-copier-un-profil-creer-un-profil-par-defaut&catid=34:cat-systeme If you read through this thread, you will see that your solution doesn't work properly because it isn't complete. On your website you forget to mention setting the registry permissions by loading the ntuser.dat into regedit and adding Everyone=Full Control on the key. If you don't do that then it won't work. Setting the registry permissions accurately is one of the things that the "Copy" button did do. Also you have to manually fix all the tatooed parts of the profile that have direct links to the username it was created in. In the registry after loading the ntuser.dat go to Software-Microsoft-Windows-CurrentVersion-Explorer-Shell Folders and User Shell Folders. You need to change the username to %username% otherwise the home folders won't work. Also you will need to repair the libraries also to the %username% redirect or they will be tatooed too. You then need to delete all the desktop.ini files as well. I have successfully manually converted a Windows XP profile into a Windows 7 profile as well as doing the manual copying of an existing profile and modifying. The pain is that it IS so much more work than just the "copy" button. BTW - Windows Enabler 1.1 works just GREAT on Windows 7 Professional. The "copy" button is still greyed out in colour but it works just fine when you click on it. lforbes
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 16th, 2010 7:59am

Hello all, I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced. Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios. If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as well Darrellg@online.microsoft.com remove the online from the address to send to me · Why is there a need to update the default profile so often? · What types of customizations are you doing? · What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? · Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights I use the local default profile for setting up computers with settings for different applications.Where I work we have students logging in. If I have to sysprep the machine to change the default profile it would take a lot more time as well as when they login they will have to reselect IE and WMP initial setup options. Another thing sysprep does that I haven't found a way around is it restores the default options for the start menu. Sysprep also requires a lot more time to do than a simple profile copy. A scenario where this could be a problem is when working on a machine and I copy the profile and then the user comes in requesting somethign else. Instead of a simple copy profile I would have to run two syspreps.
September 4th, 2010 12:07am

Hey, I have an idea. What about use easy transfer to copy the profile to an external harddisk. (or even to your local harddisk.) Then use easy transfer to copy it onto a user. (You need to click advanced settings on Windows 7.) I did something like this...and am waiting...
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 4th, 2010 8:37am

I just figured out how to Convert a Windows XP Mandatory Profile into a Windows 7 Manadatory Profile. I have a lot of Windows XP profiles with hundreds of settings that I couldn't just recreate with a default Windows 7 profile. I Video taped the procedure and put it on my website for anyone else who may want to convert their existing Windows XP profiles. Windows XP Roaming Profiles that are owned by users will work simply by copying the existing Windows XP profile and naming it Profile.v2 http://www.sd61.bc.ca/windows2000/Windows7/Profiles.html The Video site. http://www.sd61.bc.ca/windows2000/Frames/Videos.html lforbes
October 6th, 2010 7:02pm

I'm shocked at this BS honestly! I've been working with MS for 10 years now and the last 'incompatibility' issues and lack of support tools for admins is leaving me very bitter! First they chose to not provide tools such as 'systemstate' and now something as simple as copying user profiles is 'unsupported'? Seriously? I even tried MS's described method for using sysprep for creating a default profile but all that happened is I got stuck in an infinite startup loop b/c sysprep can't 'parse or process' the unattend file. Turns out it's not my fault and I didn't screw up, MS admits a known issue where one needs to check the registry first to make sure there aren't any 'left over' profile entries. Well ____ can't MS figure out that when you delete a user and their profiles to nuke the profile entries in the reg as well? Seems basic enough. SO thanks MS and I will make an effort in not supporting you from now on. Case in point, we're rolling out new VMWare infrastructure... good luck catching up in that department. I'm using more UNIX boxes now then ever, and if I had a strong user OS to push I would. Don't think it's not coming there are many acceptable OS's on the market but they are still a hard sell in the business environment... I'm already using UNIX virtual desktop installs at our library... HEAR THIS MICROSOFT, get off your behinds and support the people that make your software run! If you loose us you will loose the business sector and that's where the money's at. Your home user focus is to do what? Compete with Apple? If they dropped their prices by 30%, which they could, you'd be up a river with no paddle.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
October 29th, 2010 9:30pm

You DID have problems. Believe me or not, we didn't. All our computers are an one-man computers (one active profile computer if you prefer). So, cross references don't increases over time. When one was found we fixed it and that's it. So we have hundreds of cloned XP running like charms Nevertheless, at the moment we have moved from cloning to scripted post-installation customizations + GPO for system and MS software. (We also keep XP where we rely on cloning....) So we have perfectly clean OEM OS from Dell and run a few scripts. I recently faced two BSOD on two different computers "registry is corrupt". Worst ; restore point were of no help... but that's another story. So at the moment : XP + cloning : 0 7 w/o cloning : -2
November 2nd, 2010 4:15am

You DID have problems. Believe me or not, we didn't. All our computers are an one-man computers (one active profile computer if you prefer). So, cross references don't increases over time. When one was found we fixed it and that's it. So we have hundreds of cloned XP running like charms I've also had a few W2k cloned terminal servers running for years w/o any problems. Nevertheless, at the moment we have moved from cloning to scripted post-installation customizations + GPO for system and MS software. (We also keep XP where we rely on cloning....) So we have perfectly clean OEM OS from Dell and run a few scripts. I recently faced two BSOD on two different computers "registry is corrupt". Worst ; restore point were of no help... but that's another story. So at the moment : XP + cloning : 0 7 w/o cloning : -2
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 2nd, 2010 4:15am

Why not just create a new profile? http://www.cesabarre.com/
November 2nd, 2010 6:15am

This is what people are trying to do.... creating a new profile based on a custom default profile . Because it's very very useful and time saving to have all settings in place when someone logs in. User starts, say Business Object, and the default folder point to the correct location. He never gets any "first run experience" of any kind for any software. All regular updates of any software (acrobat, Flash, Java) are disabled because we push them when necessary The correct printer is already there etc etc... And when a printer change or any other default folder location or anything else, I just don't want to sysprep the PC, I just want to change the default profile.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 2nd, 2010 8:32am

Hi Guys, ive been playing with the copy profile unattended.xml file but have had problems with it basically not copying my settings. Ive stumbled across this thred & can see this is a long outstanding issue. has anyone got a working way of creating a default user profile with bespoke settings? Settings I need to change Start Menu Items System tray Show icon IE settings Medi Player settings. I work in a college & need to have all these set for use when users log in. They dont want to have to configure tese on every PC they login on.
November 4th, 2010 6:45am

I've writen a detailed step by step process inorder to copy the profile using sysprep and the problems that can cause it not to work. Chris Towles's Blog - Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 and using Sysprep to Copy to the Default User Profile
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 4th, 2010 12:14pm

Agreed. I cannot believe MS has been getting this complaints for this long and still nothing has happened. It means two possible things: MS don't care. It is entirely possible, MS is becoming the GM of the software industry. It is a serious design problem. MS cannot fix it without re-designing half of Windows 7 in order to make it work. Both cases are just plain unacceptable... And maybe explain why Apple, Google and others are eating Microsoft's lunch.
November 14th, 2010 7:56am

Agreed. I cannot believe MS has been getting this complaints for this long and still nothing has happened. It means two possible things: MS don't care. It is entirely possible, MS is becoming the GM of the software industry. It is a serious design problem. MS cannot fix it without re-designing half of Windows 7 in order to make it work. Both cases are just plain unacceptable... And maybe explain why Apple, Google and others are eating Microsoft's lunch.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 14th, 2010 7:56am

I am formatting my PC... I am burning my Windows 7 Disc.. I am installing Linux. Thank you Microsoft for showing me another reason why I don't need you.
December 27th, 2010 1:55am

Imfusio's method worked for me! I spent 4 days on the phone with Microsoft trying to get a template profile I configured to copy over and become my default roaming profile. The microsoft support method involves using sysprep and I think several other people have linked to the kb article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289). We had problems at every step, and the final result was that the default profile sysprep created didn't have many of the display attributes that I had setup on my template profile (they told me that's just what sysprep does). After all the time we spent, Microsoft actually tried out using Windows Enabler in their lab, and said it worked for them. We wasted 4 days but I was happy to finally have my default roaming profile working right! In the end I used windows enabler, copied my template profile to NETLOGON and the world was a better place. I was told Microsoft would look into coming up with a better solution. Hey all, I believe I have a solution! I just tested it, and it seems to work perfectly. :) 1. Download a little freeware program called "Windows Enabler 1.1 " (Google it, and download it ). (It's a handy little portable utility I keep on my thumb drive and network utilities folder. All you need is the "Windows Enabler.exe" and "EnablerDLL.dll" together in a folder.) 2. Run Windows Enabler on the Windows 7 machine, and a little blue & white icon will show up in your system tray. 3. Bring up the "Users Profile" window, and select the profile you wish to copy where the button is grayed out. 4. Click on the Windows Enabler icon in your system tray, and it should say "On" 5. Click once on the "Copy To" button, and it should un-gray the button. Click the Windows Enabler icon again to turn it off. 6. Now, you have your Copy To button working! Copy the user profiles as you normally would, and try logging in as a new user on the machine. I tested it, and it appears fully functional. I was able to copy a profile, and log in with a new user, and everything looks good so far! :D Windows Enabler is a great little utility to add to your collection :) Hope that helps!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 7th, 2011 8:33pm

Regarding the script (thank you, lolix2, for taking the time to produce & post that) to setup the junctions not created by the Copy To operation: the 'deny' switch as given in the script, for example icacls "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /deny Everyone:(S,RD) /L does not produce the proper result, which can be seen by selecting Properties on the resulting folder ~ the 'Link Properties' tab is missing when the synchronize right is included. The syntax should be icacls "c:\users\Default\Application Data" /deny Everyone:(RD) /L To add to the various reasons given throught the thread for preserving the Copy To functionality, when migrating Windows 7 onto an SSD, it can be advantageous to move the user profile folder onto an auxiliary traditional harddrive, in order to lesson wear on the SSD. No, I don't want to use sysprep & WAIK. Copy To is so much more convenient. After copying the profile to another drive, a junction is made to the emptied original folder. Quite the prophetic name, "Windows Enabler". First used it years ago in a few cases of minor convenience; finding it actually useful now in this case is nearly astonishing.
January 11th, 2011 4:55am

Guys.... forget the cacls, tricks, and 3rd party tools. Microsoft should have put THIS in their documentation!!! No one is running sysprep like this...you should try it with the custom makedefaultuser.xml file in the link. Yes, all those times sysprep crashed was because Windows Media services were running still. net stop wmpnetworksvc & sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:c:\files\makedefaultuser.xml Just read how to do it here the right way... using WAIK and the copyprofile option. Mark explains it all, Ive been using it for a while now with no problems. If your wondering, Mark writes the Mastering Windows Series books. Everyone who is an admin should scribe to the newsletters. http://www.minasi.com/newsletters/nws1005.htm Just read the doc already....
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 18th, 2011 5:24am

Hello all, I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced. Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios. If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as well Darrellg@online.microsoft.com remove the online from the address to send to me · Why is there a need to update the default profile so often? · What types of customizations are you doing? · What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? · Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights I use the local default profile for setting up computers with settings for different applications.Where I work we have students logging in. If I have to sysprep the machine to change the default profile it would take a lot more time as well as when they login they will have to reselect IE and WMP initial setup options. Another thing sysprep does that I haven't found a way around is it restores the default options for the start menu. Sysprep also requires a lot more time to do than a simple profile copy. A scenario where this could be a problem is when working on a machine and I copy the profile and then the user comes in requesting somethign else. Instead of a simple copy profile I would have to run two syspreps. that is exactly the point: often there is the need to create a customized default profile for EXISTING machines, not everyone wants to syspred everything new. In XP that was a great feature to build a userprofile profile in dependance of different customers and just overwrite the local default profile. It was just time saving. Since it would work again with windows enabler, it should be fine. But people had wasted a significant amount of time and hazzled around with this stuff.
January 27th, 2011 10:48am

Thank you so much for posting this fix. I also work in a school district and need to modify the local profile relatively often.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 27th, 2011 9:50pm

Hello all, I would like to ask some questions about replacing the Default User Profile to better understand the scenarios and reasons why it is being replaced. Certainly details would be appreciated on the scenarios. If you prefer to send directly to me that is fine as well Darrellg@online.microsoft.com remove the online from the address to send to me · Why is there a need to update the default profile so often? · What types of customizations are you doing? · What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? · Why is sysprep inadequate for this? Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights · Why is there a need to update the default profile so often? When you upgrade an environement from a workgroup to a domain. We would like to keep the original settings that the main users were used to. This saves hours upon hours. I work by the hour and if i presented this costly solution to a client i would never be able to grow my business. · What types of customizations are you doing? Outlook profiles, ACT settings, CRM software. · What types of profiles are being customizing? Mandatory, network default, local default? local, and network default, mandataory · Why is sysprep inadequate for this? You should be able to figure this out by now.
April 8th, 2011 1:50am

Here is a sensario for you. the user is working under a local profile and has all their documents favorites ect under this profile. Then it is discovered the PC needs to be joined to the domain. after joining the PC to the domain you want the user to be able to have everything they had before. in the past I would copy their local profile to their domain profile after joining the domain. But now you cannot do that on Windows 7. Here is another reason. a user has a corrupt profile but another co-worker who uses the PC uses the same resources, you can easily over write her profile with another user whos got all the same software and link set up. But you cannot do that anymore. I agree its rediculous that this dosn't work on Windows 7. Why? and the search feature also is terrible. for example I cannot search for "hosts" and have the hosts file come up. I have to know the path and browse to it (just one example).
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 28th, 2011 8:55pm

why isn't it working for me? I clicked on it and it says "on" but my copy to button is still grayed out. I tried several times. does it require a reboot?
April 28th, 2011 9:38pm

Using the Windows Enabler Step 1 Go to Google.com and search for Windows Enabler and download the unzip the Enabler in a folder or USB Stick Step 2. Double click the Windows Enabler Step 3. Go to the system tray and click on the Windows Enabler Icon and it will turn on Step 4. Go to the User Profile menu Step 5. Select a profile and if the button is still in gray than click on it. Now like magic it become visible to use and the button is now ready for you to copy a profile. And that is it. And the Windows Search does suck big time, I will agree to that.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 1st, 2011 7:56pm

Try using Windows Easy Transfer Wizard. Type "easy" in the search programs and files box. This actually is the best way we have found.
May 3rd, 2011 8:51pm

This has become a huge issue for me as the developer of the images for deployment. We have roughly 2000 computers, and when we make a change, we need to be able to have all the users who log on see the same thing, as this is a school house. The lesson plans are built around it. We have been using the replace default folder that has been suggested, which has worked for the most part. Here is the issue, the shell folders in the registry get screwed up and point to the source folder. Let's call it the Owner folder. Backgrounds show up black, quick launch is tempermental, and programs like IBM Lotus Notes Form viewer use the AppData folder to store preferences. Since the shell folders point to the Owner folder, when a user tries to open it, they get a bunch of errors. Only way to fix it, is to enable the everyone permission on that folder under AppData.. this has to be done to oh say 500 computers. I can't find an answer on how to reset this and I am starting to beat my head on the wall on my "Stress reduction kit"
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 27th, 2011 8:16pm

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics