Didn't see that anyone posted this. It's back on sysprep being a solution. This video may help or may not. Windows 7 Deployment Tools Part 1
I'm going to go test it out and see if it either pulls the profile I want as default (I'm going to leave it as the only profile on the machine) or if it fixes the default profile I tried to copy over. Either would be fine with me.
It seems as though the proper way to do this is by using GPOs for things like wallpapers, start menu, etc. and "delivered" apps from the domain, nothing to do with profiles although you could have the profile wiped at logout so that everything gets reapplied at the next login.
I'll give this a shot, but I've already tried it 2 or 3 times.
I'm sorry, Windows 7 users, but I can honestly say Microsoft has failed in this department. Not being able to set default profiles with ease is a dramatic set back. We keep copies of the default profiles from each lab on the server, and easily pull them down whenever needed if we set up a computer real quick.
This is definitely failblog material.
A computer engineer came to work to help me out with this issue. After 3 hours, we got it working. Before you guys get your hopes up - read on. This story doesn't have a happy ending.
I have two computers on my desk with Windows 7. One we worked on and got the profiles working. What we did was copied the administrator profile and pasted it. Then renamed it to Default (we renamed the original default to default.old before this). Then, set it to be hidden, and opened the permissions to full control for "everyone" and set "everyone" as the owner of the folder, along with everything inside. And this works. Any user I create and log in, I get the default profile. Everything. Printers, desktop background, everything.
So after he left, I tried to duplicate the same thing on my other Windows 7 machine, which is running the exact same copy installed from the same CD. I have well documented instructions from getting it working the first time. I did everything step by step, logged in, and I get everything except printers and desktop backgrounds.
Both computers have default set to full control.
Both computers have everyone as the owner.
Both computers had the profile set up the same way.
Both computers are running the same version of Windows 7.
Why, OH WHY, is this thing not working?
I work with all operating system platforms, Linux, Windows, and Mac alike. I never ever felt "scared" to touch an operating system. But I can honestly say I'm afraid to even power my other (working) computer back on in case it'll undo what myself and the computer engineer spent 3 hours figuring out.
What can I do? I'm desperate to get this working. Maybe service pack 1 will provide some hope? Maybe?
Because you are stuck in a Windows XP mindset. Windows Vista and 7 are not Windows XP.
Please read...
Deploying Vista - Part 1: Understanding the Windows AIK
As for the wallpaper put it in a place accessible to all users like Windows\Web\Wallpaper, then assign it from there before copying over the Default profile.
Not having to use third-party imaging to clone and deploy a machine is not a good idea? The problem I am assuming is that you are trying to wedge it into an archaic method used for a 10+ year old OS called Windows XP. It really is not that hard if you forget about the methods you used with Windows XP.
I don't know what it is about the windows cloning thing that is appealing, but it doesn't really raise an eyebrow for me.
I use FOG - free, open source linux based cloning software that is designed specifically for imaging Windows workstations, although it does have some Linux cloning support built into it as well.
I don't want to get into a big windows vs linux fiasco here, but when you're comparing a free built in windows imaging option versus a free linux based imaging option, I mean... to me at least, the logical choice is obvious.
Moving along, all I need to do is set default profiles. Really. That's it. I don't mean to be pushy but it's been incredibly frustrating because I have a stack of brand new computers here just sitting here waiting for me to dump Windows on them. I've tried very hard to find a solution to my problem, including many different forums, contacting Microsoft directly, etc. It's frustrating from my point of view to be told "This is what you have to do to set default profiles" and I read it to find it's a ton of steps in a very cumbersome application.
If AIK is what I need to do to get default profiles going, fine, I'll do it. But when I'm reading through here about what it can do, I'm not seeing where it says "this is how you set default profiles." All it talks about is imaging and weeee we have it integrated yayyy. That's useless to me. I have an imaging solution. I just need to be able to set the profiles. It's been a very headache infatuated process because everywhere I look, all I see is people with the same issues and nobody getting a solution.
The bottom line is, all I need is to set the local default profiles on Windows 7.
I don't care what it takes, I just need to get it done. I need nothing else. JUST default profiles.
Okay, so... That still raises some questions. I see in that picture you're in the system image manager. Is that the same as AIK? Or is AIK a completely different application?
Do I run that on the Windows 7 computer? Or can I run this on my XP laptop, generate the appropriate unattend.xml file, and somehow dump it onto the Windows 7 computer and it work accordingly?
When I set that up, is that part of the windows imaging? Or can I set up the Windows 7 machine with the unattend.xml file set up and use my own imaging solution?
I have read a lot of documentation about the unattend.xml file, and despite all of that, it's still very hard to have basic questions answered. So I thank you for your time on this forum helping me.
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