Hi Vanguard,
I'm pleased to report that the folder has successfully
been copied and I'm writing this note from my copied
account.
The troublesome 'Access denied' message reported below,
was caused by the fact that the third account created
from which to copy the other two accounts must have
permission to change, including copying, any system
floders in the other two accounts. This persmission was
not set by default but must be manually set, which was
what I did. After that. everything went exactly as you
instructed.
Forgive me for saying your depth of knowledge Vanguard is
impressive. Many thanks for yours and your coleagues'
help.
Regards
Qal
-----Original Message-----
(e-mail address removed) said in
Have you rebooted and retried?
Were you logged under either account that was involved?
You need to be logged under a wholly separate account.
You cannot be logged on under the *from* or *to*
accounts. You cannot copy the profile from the currently
logged on account because files will be in use, like the
ntuser.dat file. You cannot copy a profile to another
account that has not yet been logged into because it
won't yet be recorded in the registry (nor will the
profile path exist and the browse dialog doesn't have an
option to create subfolders).
Was the 3rd account an admin-level account (so you can
actually change permissions)? Are you logged onto a
domain at the time, or are you logging on under local
accounts?
When does the access denied error occur? During the
profile copy? Or when you attempt to login under the new
account to which you copied the old profile?
If the profile copy was successful (and you were getting
the access denied message elsewhere), have you tried
right-clicking on that destination folder for the new
account's profile (while logged on under Administrator or
any admin-level account other than that new account) and
set permissions to allow FULL control for that new
account (including all subfolders and files)? While
logged under an admin-level account other than your new
one, right-click on the profile folder. Under the
Security tab, make sure your new account is actually
listed as one of those that has permissions. Then make
sure Full Control is enabled when you select the new
account in the list. With all your other operations, it
is possible you performed an incomplete copy or
permissions did not get changed. Your new account needs
to have Full Control permissions on its own profile
path. If your new account is not listed in the "Group or
user names" list in the Security properties for the new
account's profile folder, add it. Then make sure it gets
Full Control permissions. If the Everyone account is
listed, delete it (as you don't want Everyone to have any
permissions other than the account itself). The SYSTEM
account should be listed with full control. Although you
don't need to, you probably should ensure the
Administrators group is listed and has full control, too
(they can take ownership anytime they want to if you
don't list them, anyway). If you get prompted to set
permissions on all child folders and files, do so.
The process that I mentioned is pretty similar to how others describe it, like:
http://www.petri.co.il/copy_user_profiles_in_windows_xp.h tm
However, I can see one possible problem area. The
ntuser.dat file that was under the profile for the old
account may have SID (security identifier) settings that
point to the old account but the SID for the new account
won't match (each account gets a different SID). See
http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Articles/ArticleID/39192/
pg/2/2.html. Item # 6 addresses how you get permissions
for your new account's SID. I've not had to do this so
maybe the wizard for the Copy To under User Profiles
handles this. Pretty much I follow the instructions at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=305709 except I add
the target account (that gets the profile copy) instead
of the Everyone account.
