Here's how to create a Default Profile without using SysPrep

OS: Windows 7

I have been looking at how to create a default profile without using SysPrep. There is a lot of information on the web on how it could be done in XP by just using a "copy to" command, and how it is not possible under Windows 7. The officially supported method from Microsoft involves using SysPrep. Official method despite being too complex for most also has the added disadvantage that it is meant to be used when setting up an image for deploy. I needed a method that I could use on a PC during any stage of its life cycle (i.e. both pre-deploy and post-deploy times) without going through SysPrep.

There are several ways listed on the web on how to "fool" Windows into accepting any profile as Default. A sampling of those methods is: creating a user and then copying its c:\users folder and renaming it to Default, OR updating DefaultProfile registry key to point to the desired profile's folder, OR using a hack to enable 'Copy To' button in Windows Profiles dialog box, etc. All of those methods work to an extent BUT also result in side-effects to solve which MS brought up the SysPrep method. I have also come across methods which attempt to resolve these issues by running a bat file to update certain registry keys upon every logon. That wasn’t acceptable to me either due to extra overhead of maintaining a bat file/login script, etc.

After much trial and error, I have been able to combine information from various sources (with some of my own tries sprinkled in ), and have come up with the following method of editing and updating Default profile WITHOUT having to use SysPrep AND avoiding much (if not all) drawbacks of using a non-SysPrep method. Please try it and post your success rate here so I can validate its usefulness. I have been satisfied with my testing but need to see how others find it.

Steps:

Please note that you can do it at any time: during image prep, on a deployed PC, audit mode, non-audit mode, you name it...

1. Login as Administrator
2. Create a user (at this time, the Default profile is the original Windows one). Let's call it to_be_default
3. Login as that user and do whatever customizations you need to make (desktop, power options, IE settings, etc)
4. Log off and login as Administrator
5. Do a copy and then paste of the new user folder in C:\users. You will end up with a folder named "to_be_default - Copy" in C:\Users folder.
6. Rename C:\Users\Default to something like c:\users\Default_original. This will be the backup copy you can fall back to if things go wrong.
7. Rename "c:\users\to_be_default - copy" to c:\users\Default.
8. Verify that 'Everyone' and 'Users' have "Read & execute", "list folder contents", and "read" permissions on this newly renamed c:\users\Default folder.
9. Run this in cmd window with c:\users as current directory: "attrib +H +S Default"
10. Run regedit as Administrator (required even if you are logged in as Administrator or Load Hive command will not be active in File menu)
11. Click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then on Load Hive in File menu (note: load hive may not be active until you click on HKLM).
12. Select c:\users\Default\ntuser.dat
13. regEdit will ask for a name for this hive's node. Give it any name (let's call it Default Profile)
14. Click on the new Default Profile node which just created in regedit under HKLM, and then select Export from File menu. It will export out entire key structure present under new "Default Profile".
15. Open the newly created .reg file in notepad. It is important to open in Notepad because you need the end file to have ANSI coding.
16. Search for the following and change Username from to_be_default to Default.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Default Profile\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}]
"Version"="6,1,7601,17514"
"Locale"="*"
"Username"="to_be_default" <-- Change to "Default"
17. Do a bulk copy and replace as following:
Search for: c:\\users\\to_be_default
Replace with: %USERPROFILE%
18. Save your edits and close Notepad.
19. Back in Regedit, select Import from the File menu and select the .reg file you just edited and saved.
20. Accept any warnings, and continue. If import fails with an error message that .reg file is not a registry file, make sure you used Notepad for above steps. To fix this error, just reopen the .reg file in Notepad and hit save.

You are now done. From this point on, if you create a user, it will inherit Default settings as you configured in step #3 above, and the new user’s registry settings will all be pointing to right locations (i.e. no cross talk, and pointing back to wrong user folders, etc).

PLEASE DO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THE ABOVE AND WHAT YOUR TESTING REVEALS. We intend to use it in production environment where we manage hundreds of PC's. This message of editing Default profile will save us a lot of time and effort. Please do let me know what you think about this approach.

Thanks and I am glad if it works for you.....

That looks like it should work.

Similar to what I do when building pe (except when building pe I use the default hive itself - not ntuser, because I point the profileimagepath at x:\users\default )

I am very interested in a "Default Profile" setup for Windows 7 (64-bit, Pro) as described in this thread but I haven't been able to follow these steps successfully. Specifically, in steps 9-12 I cannot see a NTUSER.DAT file or any NTUSER.* file(s). If I change C:\User\Default to attrib -H -S, then I can then see a single NTUSER.DAT.LOG file in C:\User\Default. Any ideas what I may have done/didn't do or just something else to try? Thanks.

go to folder options. Untick "hide protected operating system files", ok the pop up.

Now paste this into command prompt:

%windir%\explorer.exe "%systemdrive%\Users\Default"

You don't specifically say whether you used Windows Enabler or not. I have, but only once so far. I haven't seen any issues yet, but the jury is still out.

It sounds like your method would work though. Good luck with it.

You left a step out at the end to unload the hive from the registry which if left loaded in the registry editor will cause the default profile to fail to load for a new user.

Welcome to Seven Forums PoppaJoe. Nice addition. A Guy

BadShah,

Great work, helped me out considerably so thanks for your efforts.

In Steps 16 & 17, I think that you also need to add doing a Search and Find Next for "to_be_default" by itself as there are a few other references in the reg file that are not found with the "c\\users\\to_be_default" search and replace. And you can't do a mass search and replace either because there are a few additional "Username=to_be_default" keys as well. I did a Find Next search and went one by one.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and these are unnecessary steps.

I know that it's a bit late for your purposes, but I have found your method quite trustworthy.

I have also tested the use of it on a computer with a slightly different image applied to it using a copy of the newly created "Default" profile and the "Default-Profile.reg" update. It worked without a problem.

Thanks for posting your findings!

Great Guide

The best guide I have found so far. Please add the "unload hive to your list, because people may not read (or print) the comments.
Thank you very much

Working on it Now! Let you know how it works!

Thanks so much for this nice work.

Swapping steps 16 and 17 help a lot in the clean up process. Also searching just for "44BBA840" found the other items that needed be changed.

This process works sweet. Thanks for sharing it.

I know this is a super old thread but I was testing this out since some of the guys at work was trying to implement it. Works alright but I think I may be missing something. When you bulk find and replace all instances of c:\\users\\{username} with the %userprofile% variable and then try to install any apps that would normally drop a configuration/preference folder under the c:\users\{username} directory, it just creates a user folder named %userprofile% and drops the config folder in there.

I did a bunch of research and it appears the registry cannot expand the %userprofile% variable since it is a regular string type in the registry. Only way that seems to work is if you change it to a REG_EXPAND_SZ type but that's where it gets crazy. Did more research on this as well and seems the only way to change it to a REG_EXPAND_SZ type is to manually input the ASCII values as hex values.. so instead of using something like %USERPROFILE%\\appdata\\local\\Microsoft\\Windows Media\\{filename}, I would have to set the value as hex(2):{crazy long hex values}. I have not tested this fully since there are about 15-20 places where I would have to manually convert each string over to hexadecimal and copy it back into the reg file....

Like I said I know it's an old thread but does anyone know what I'm missing or what Im doing wrong? I can't use system/environment variables in the reg edits...

All users writing to C:\Users\Default

I have a few applications that need to write data to the "Users" profile and instead I am noticing that it's writing to c:\Users\Default\...

Is there a way around this?

I think it is important to re-read steps #16 and #17. The only thing I changed was under Step #17. It was indicated to use %USERPROFILE% but instead I used %USERNAME% and all new users logging in under that system with the updated "default" profile are having their information point to their folders now.

When using the %USERPROFILE% under Step 17, I noticed that new users would not have their username automatically populate with software that wanted to save settings to.

Under Step #16 it is important to remember to to change the Username of "to_be_default" to "Default" instead of the %USERPROFILE%.

Recap:

Step 16: Change the Username of "to_be_default" to "Default" under that one specific registry section

Step 17: Change all "to_be_default" to "%USERNAME%" for all remaining items

Step 19: After you have re-imported the updated registry information, remember to click File | select Unload Hive in the registry. That step was missing from the original steps listed above on Page 1.


Hope this helps. and a Big Thanks to badshah for posting this thread in the first place!

Does this help?
How to create a default user profile in Windows 7 - Answers That Work

Although I haven't tested the %username% theory yet, I can say that this method comes very close to actually working. The main issue I have discovered is that when attempting to run the windows 7 backup using a newly created user, the backup will fail. I suspect it has to do with the %userprofile% issue as mentioned above. I exported/edited/imported the entries in the registry: "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Sofware\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" I simply did a replace all on %userprofile% with the current user profile name eg. c:\\user, and the backup started working again. Problem is I don't want to edit 200 shell folders.. Hopefully the %username% fix above will fix this too. Cheers

So, it's an old thread, but I need to tell you something...

When we copy the to_be_default folder, we end up with a folder with lots of files and folders useless to default user. Sometimes, the new user don't 'get' all modifications: it misses some icons, some folders poits to 'to_be_default', and other things.

I think is because the NTFS permissions, or the junctions inside 'default' folder. Maybe the %userprofile% or %username% variable. Maybe all of this.

So, here is how I'm doing for now:

1. Activate the administrator account and create a new account for testing (let's call new_account);
2. Log with an existing account (let's call my_account), and make all modifications I need (desktop, icons, homepages, energy, etc);
3. Login as administrator, run command prompt, and type these commands:
   1. reg load hklm\default_account c:\users\default\ntuser.dat
   2. reg load hklm\my_account c:\users\my_account\ntuser.dat
4. Now we have both profiles loaded in the registry. Now, we will copy all keys and values we changed with my_account to default_account. Let's take 'folder options' as example:
   1. reg copy hklm\my_account\software\microsoft\widnows\currentversion\explorer\advanced hklm\default_account\software\microsoft\widnows\currentversion\explorer\advanced /f /s
5. Use the above command to all changes you made. Maybe you need to know wich keys was modified, but this forum have a lot of information about this;
6. A note: if a key or value uses spaces, type the key with ". For example: "hklm\default_account\software\microsoft\internet explorer";
7. When you finish copying, unload all hives with:
   1. reg unload hklm\default_account
   2. reg unload hklm\my_account

Thats it. When you log with new_account, it 'pushes' the newly modified NTUSER.DAT from c:\users\default. If you want, you only need to copy c:\users\default\ntuser.dat to another place, for backup or to use in another machine. Don't need to copy the entire Default or new_account folder.


For now, the only thing I can't do with this method is install Microsoft Update. Yes, there is a difference between Windows Update and Microsoft Update. Windows Update install updates for Windows itself, and Microsoft Update install updates to a lot of Microsoft programs, like Office, NET Framework, and others. If you know how install Microsoft Update, or the files and keys it uses, let me know.

Wonderful

I have been sitting on this article for about 2 years now and finally decided to implement it. Granted, I haven't seen all the updates everyone has been posting. I will implement them on my next test around. I will say that this method did work for my Windows 10 Pro default profile. Everything worked well. Only issue was Start Menu wouldn't come up. Did a restart, and bam, its working. Still testing it, but just want to let everyone know that this method will work on Win 10.

My next build I will do %username% as opposed to %userprofile%. I hadn't seen those posts yet.

Still testing and will let you all know if anything else is broken.

Process does not seem to be fully working under Windows 10

I tried to use the same procedure that I have been using Successfully with Windows 7 Pro with Windows 10 and I am getting strange issues the Default profile copy having AppData copies containing not all the files in them.

Normally under my "Original" default profile I have something called AppData and then another folder called Application Data

When I follow the process from before, the new "Default" gets AppData and then Appdata - Copy and AppData - Copy (2)

I am not sure what is causing this but I"m sure it has to do with some setting under Windows 10 that I cannot figure out how to change.

Has anyone else had similar issues following this Windows 7 process under a new Windows 10 system?