kb314843 and kb236621 questions

I experimented with these 2 procedures and the instructions for moving the entire contents of the folder is flawed. Even as Administrator you cannot copy or move the ntuser.dat files in Network services & Local services. What can be done if you want to move or copy the directory in its entirety is boot up from a rescue or WINDOWS disk & use xcopy in cmd mode. That does work.




Next, editing the REGISTRY, if it could be done successfully it is time consuming to the point that is improbable. It certainly would take hours if not a full day. I tried it on a freshly installed system so that the number of users is limited & I could not get that to work whatsoever. Is there a TOOL or UTILITY that could actually streamline this process?


Both articles should probably be removed because I am certain many have spent priceless time in VAIN & suffer from the time penalty especially if does not work.

Can you post links to the articles you are referring to with "Both articles should probably be removed" ?

NoelDP said:

Thes ntuser.dat files should be left alone. They all form different parts of thecregistry and are of no use in a general backup scenario

OK, having done your suggestion of backing up now I need to delete those the files of those USERS. How do I know what is permissible to delete so that I do not encounter system problems? Can I delete everything with the hope the backup is capable of restoring even the ntuser files? I guess I can experiment with your suggestion, but I think I will still have problems.

NoelDP said:

Which part of 'The ntuser.dat files should be left alone.' did you not understand?

I greatly appreciate your condescending tone in your message, but if you think you want to inform me why don't you explain?

But in retort, I did understand your message. On top of that I conducted my experiment on an expendable laptop & successfully deleted the NTUSER files & restored them. I will spare you the details because it was a TRICKY operation, but the computer boots & the USER files are accessible. I then repeated the procedure on the laptop of interest & everything works FINE.

SUGGESTION: CHECK YOUR ARROGANCE at the KEYBOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In response to this posting I experimented on an expendable laptop & successfully developed a procedure that is less labor intensive than the technical notes kb314843 and kb236621 . However, keep in mind that my motive was to archive, NOT MOVE, the DOCUMENTS & SETTINGS files to a separate drive or partition. So if your motive is to MOVE the DOCUMENTS & SETTINGS files then circumventing the registry is probably not going to work.
1st: BACKUP the DOCCUMENTS & SETTINGS folder via the WIN BACKUP & RESTORE utility. (I imagine you could use 3rd party software, but I only experimented with the WINDOWS utility)
2nd: BOOT from an external CD/DVD or USB bootable media. Through the CMD prompt DELETE everything within the DOCUMENTS & SETTINGS folder other than the ADMINISTRATOR folder.
3rd: REBOOT & LOGIN as ADMINISTRATOR.
4th: Create any new USER profiles necessary.
5th: If you ever need to restore the older USER profiles then the BACKUP can be restored, but done so with ADMINSTRATIVE privileges. MAKE SURE that you use the option to retain existing files & not allow the OVERWRITE option.
I don't know if anyone needs this capability, but I did. My guess is that I am not UNIQUE (maybe STRANGE though).