Creating a new Default user profile for our domain

I know, the MS way is to use SysPrep, but that seems enormously OTT when all I want to do is create a Windows 7 Default Profile for our domain.



So, according to my (Google driven) research an easier method is to

1. Logon with a user account
2. Make it 'so' (i.e. set the default profile how you want it for all new users)
3. Log off
4. Log on as Admin
5. Rename c:\users\default (as default.bak, or .old, whatever)
6. Rename the folder for the user account used in step 1 to 'default'
7. Apply Full control permissions to 'Everyone' on the new Default folder.

Simples!

Except that at step 7 I get 'Access Denied' on many of the profile's sub-folders...be that with our domain's administrator account or the local administartor account.

Am I doing something wrong (polite answers only, please!)?

Ah right, it's not the folders producing the 'Access Denied' message, it's the junctions/symbolic links.

If so, that should mean I can more or less disregard these errors.

This already is a test system. :)

Getting a different error now though (when logging on as a test user having renamed the intended default profile and re-applied Everyone:FC permissions): "The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded".

Am investigating. I suspect permissions will still be at fault somewhere...

The methods listed below has been verified in a non AD domain, so if you use Domain level GPOs (with AD) you may need to do further testing to make sure that the local gpo settings listed below are not over written by the domain policies. Also, if there is a Default User.v2 share in your netlogon shares on your servers you may need to set the permissions to that folder to "deny all" so that the windows 7 client won't pull whatever profile is there. Or you can make sure that there is no profile in that folder. Windows 7 domain computers will look in that share for the "domain user default profile" and apply it to any domain user the first time they log on to that machine.
Non sysprep method (sysprep method follows)
Make group policy changes (these are what causes win 7 to not look toward the server for a default profile)
• Computer Config > Administrative Templates > System > User Profiles >
o Only Allow User Profiles = Enabled
o Set Roaming Profile Path for all users logging onto this computer = Disabled
o Prevent Roaming Profile changes from propagating to the server = Enabled
• Customize the Test or Setup account (if from mini setup, if from image create a setup account)
• Enable built-in Administrator account
• Log on as Administrator
• Install RichCopy from Technet
• Use Explorer to unhide system files and folders
• Use RichCopy to copy the profile from the account used to implement customizations to "Default User"
• Join machine to the domain
• Reboot
• Log on domain user and all customizations that can be transferred should be applied to the users' profile
•
Sysprep Method - You may want to use this method because this method should be fully supported by MS
• Login as the setup account
• Enable Administrator Account - log off
• Log on as Administrator
• Go to Manage Users
• Delete Setup account and any other accounts that have a profile folder and choose "delete files"
• Make group policy changes
• Computer Config > Administrative Templates > System > User Profiles >
• Only Allow User Profiles = Enabled
• Set Roaming Profile Path for all users logging onto this computer = Disabled
• Prevent Roaming Profile changes from propagating to the server = Enabled
• Complete all customizations
• Copy validated answer file to C: root
• Go to windows\system32\sysprep
• Right click while holding shift and choose "open command window here"
• run "sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize /unattend:c:\yourunattendfile.xml /reboot
• Once the system reboots go through whatever portion of mini-setup your answer file dictates
• Join machine to the domain
• Log on as a domain user
• Basic look and feel customizations should have been applied from the local Defaul User profile

And as long as the local policies that we set above remain intact, any domain user that logs onto the machine will receive the look and feel that you want for your organization.
Because MS has not published a comprehensive list of items/settings that cannot be applied to a default profile, you will have to experiment with that. I did find a doc that made it clear that the quick launch as well as the area of the start menu where you "pin" shortcuts do not persist when copying customizations to the default profile. See this site for step by step for much of the above Newsletter #89:* Changing Win 7 Default Profile and Sysprep Tricks