Account naming and cloning issues.

[Robbie Hatley]

Greetings, group. I have a couple questions about Win2000 accounts:

1. RENAMING. I renamed the default "Administrator" account to something
else, but the account folder in "Documents and Settings" is still
named "Administrator". Is it normal for the folder to keep its
original name, no matter what you rename an account to? If so, can
this be over-ridden somehow, perhaps by editing the registry? Or are
the folder names fixed forever? (Or, at least, until the account is
deleted?)

2. CLONING. For years I operated Win2000 using only the default admin.
account, because I was the only user, and I was constantly adding
and removing software and reconfiguring the system, so jumping
back and forth between a "administrator" account and a "normal"
account would have been a big hastle. But lately, I've become more
concerned about security, so I'd like to create two new accounts:
one non-default administrator account, and one normal account.
But i'd like to be able to "clone" my original profile to the other
two accounts, so that the following would be true:

Outlook Express still recognizes me as being me, so I can
access my mail accounts, usenet accounts, usenet group lists,
usenet stored messages, email stored messages, etc., etc..

Internet Explorer still recognizes me as being me, so I can
access my favorites, settings, history, etc.

Start Menu still has all my folder-structure and shortcuts, so
I can easily access my programs.

Desktop contents carry over to new accts.

Display properties (background, s'saver, appearance, colors, and
esp. font faces and sizes) carry over to new accts.

Toolbars (and their contents) carry over to new accts. (I use
toolbars in the taskbar to do 99% of program launching, so
this feature would be very important.)

So... is there any way to clone accounts? Or would I have to start
from a blank slate and re-build everything manually?

 

[Pegasus]

See below.

Greetings, group. I have a couple questions about Win2000 accounts:

1. RENAMING. I renamed the default "Administrator" account to something
else, but the account folder in "Documents and Settings" is still
named "Administrator". Is it normal for the folder to keep its
original name, no matter what you rename an account to? If so, can
this be over-ridden somehow, perhaps by editing the registry? Or are
the folder names fixed forever? (Or, at least, until the account is
deleted?)

What would be the benefit of renaming the profile folders?

2. CLONING. For years I operated Win2000 using only the default admin.
account, because I was the only user, and I was constantly adding
and removing software and reconfiguring the system, so jumping
back and forth between a "administrator" account and a "normal"
account would have been a big hastle. But lately, I've become more
concerned about security, so I'd like to create two new accounts:
one non-default administrator account, and one normal account.
But i'd like to be able to "clone" my original profile to the other
two accounts, so that the following would be true:

Outlook Express still recognizes me as being me, so I can
access my mail accounts, usenet accounts, usenet group lists,
usenet stored messages, email stored messages, etc., etc..

Internet Explorer still recognizes me as being me, so I can
access my favorites, settings, history, etc.

Start Menu still has all my folder-structure and shortcuts, so
I can easily access my programs.

Desktop contents carry over to new accts.

Display properties (background, s'saver, appearance, colors, and
esp. font faces and sizes) carry over to new accts.

Toolbars (and their contents) carry over to new accts. (I use
toolbars in the taskbar to do 99% of program launching, so
this feature would be very important.)

So... is there any way to clone accounts? Or would I have to start
from a blank slate and re-build everything manually?

--
Curious,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf aatt well dott com
triple-dubya dott tustinfreezone dott org

Try this:
1. Log on as the new user. Let's assume it's Robbie.
2. Reboot the machine.
3. Log on as an administrator (but NOT as the owner of the profile to be
cloned)
4. Copy the profile to be cloned via the Control Panel / System /
Advanced / User Profiles. Specify "c:\Documents and Settings\Robbie" as
the target.

 

[Robbie Hatley]

What would be the benefit of renaming the profile folders?

So that one can tell at a glance which folder belongs to which
user, and not have to remember, "Hmmm.... 'Bob' is actually Tom,
'Pete' is actually Sam, 'Tom' is actually Pete..." etc.

Try this:
1. Log on as the new user. Let's assume it's Robbie.
2. Reboot the machine.
3. Log on as an administrator (but NOT as the owner of the profile
to be cloned)
4. Copy the profile to be cloned via the Control Panel / System /
Advanced / User Profiles. Specify "c:\Documents and Settings\Robbie"
as the target.

COOL!!! Thanks!!! I used that to create three new accounts:

- an alternate administration account
- a power-user account
- a user account (which I'll use most of the time)

I cloned the default administrator profile to all of those, and
I'm now recognized as the same "identity" on all four accounts,
and all my stuff is the same (desktop settings, web, email, etc.)

I did have to do some deleting of unnecessary files, because my
default administrator account had bloated to 500MB in size, so
cloning it ate up 1.5GB of disk space. Easily fixed in 30min,
though, by riffling through all the files and deleting unnecessary
junk.

Anything requiring passwords (email, usenet) on the new accts asks
me for my password the very first time I use it, but that's ok.

The accts will likely drift apart as time goes by, but for now
they're all identical, which is exactly what I wanted.

Thanks!

 

[Pegasus]

So that one can tell at a glance which folder belongs to which
user, and not have to remember, "Hmmm.... 'Bob' is actually Tom,
'Pete' is actually Sam, 'Tom' is actually Pete..." etc.


COOL!!! Thanks!!! I used that to create three new accounts:

- an alternate administration account
- a power-user account
- a user account (which I'll use most of the time)

I cloned the default administrator profile to all of those, and
I'm now recognized as the same "identity" on all four accounts,
and all my stuff is the same (desktop settings, web, email, etc.)

I did have to do some deleting of unnecessary files, because my
default administrator account had bloated to 500MB in size, so
cloning it ate up 1.5GB of disk space. Easily fixed in 30min,
though, by riffling through all the files and deleting unnecessary
junk.

Anything requiring passwords (email, usenet) on the new accts asks
me for my password the very first time I use it, but that's ok.

The accts will likely drift apart as time goes by, but for now
they're all identical, which is exactly what I wanted.

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback.