Default User Profile

[Guest]

I've been trying to figure this out for months. When you want to customize
the default user profile, I do everything as per normal, ie local in as local
user, customize the things that you need, and then as the admin you copy the
profile to the default user profile.

The thing which annoys me about this is that every users' my documents
folders have the same username as the user that you copied to the default
user profile. Of course the user doesn't see this, but if you connect via
the network or are logged on as admin, you see the my documents folder in
every profile has the name ie <username of copied profile>'s documents. It
should have their own username. It's not a big deal, but is annoying. Does
anyone know how to fix this?

 

[Larry Gardner]

I'm sorry ... but that is not how to modify the user profile. If you logged
in as a local user (limited or admin account), the ntuser.dat of that user
will have the login user name throughout that user's ntuser.dat file.

I believe what you should have done, if you did not wish to use the Copy
Profile option under Control Panel | System | Advanced, is:

1. Backup Default User\ntuser.dat and Default User\Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat
2. Open Regedit
3. Click on HKEY_USERS
4. Click on File | Load Hive
5. Enter C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\ntuser.dat
6. Enter a unique name
7. Make all modifications to anything here in this tree
8. When completed, click on your unique name for the hive
9. Click on File | Unload Hive
10. Confirm

Now the C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\ntuser.dat has been modified.
Any new user account created will get those settings. To revert back to
original settings, backup new ntuser.dat and put backup ntuser.dat back.

 

[Guest]

I did use the Control Panel | System | Advanced to copy the customized
profile to the default user profile, as per the KB

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319974

And yes you do get the same username throughout the profile using this
method. As I said the user doesn't see it, they still see "My documents",
"My Pictures" etc, it's just the administrator, or when you looking at the
files over the network that you can see it has gone wrong.

I'm not familiar enough with the keys in the registry to be able to
customize the profile that way.

There must be some keys in the registry that get modified for the user's my
documents, my pictures etc that keys are %userprofile%... in a standard
default user profile, but once customized this must get overwritten with the
username that you customized the default user profile with.

Does that make sense?

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

The Desktop.ini File Does Not Work Correctly When You Create a Custom
Default Profile:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=321281

Wallpaper setting does not apply correctly when you create a custom default
user profile ?:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/defaultwp.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I did use the Control Panel | System | Advanced to copy the customized
profile to the default user profile, as per the KB

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319974

And yes you do get the same username throughout the profile using this
method. As I said the user doesn't see it, they still see "My documents",
"My Pictures" etc, it's just the administrator, or when you looking at the
files over the network that you can see it has gone wrong.

I'm not familiar enough with the keys in the registry to be able to
customize the profile that way.

There must be some keys in the registry that get modified for the user's my
documents, my pictures etc that keys are %userprofile%... in a standard
default user profile, but once customized this must get overwritten with the
username that you customized the default user profile with.

Does that make sense?

 

[Larry Gardner]

Did you try using TweakUI and use the My Computer | Special Folders option
to modify the locations?