Managing the Default User profile

[Guest]

Currently when a new user logs on the default user profile gets copied into a
new user profile folder for each new user that logs in. It can take a very
long time for a new person to login, up to seven minutes. Is it possible to
force windows xp logins to all use the same profile folder, such as the
default user, instead of copying it to a new profile each time?

I thought there might be a registry tweak that could possibly do the trick.
Does anyone have any similar problems or a possibly solution to the problem?

 

[WTC]

One suggestion is to copy a user profile into the Default User profile and
see if the new user profiles are taking a considerable amount of time to
create when login in the first time. Before performing these steps in the
following KB, I would suggest creating a full backup image of your system
drive so if something goes wrong then at least you can restore your system.

How to create a custom default user profile
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319974


Also what happens when a new user profile is created the first time if you
disable all third party startup entries and services using the System
Configuration Tool (msconfig)?

 

[Guest]

I'll explain my setup a bit more:

I actually work as a lab coordinator for a college campus and am attempting
to speed up the login times for students when they login to the windows XP
computers.

We currently do us a custom default user profile much like the knowledge
base article you linked. The image for the lab computers is quite large and
has a very high volume of applications installed on it. As such, it takes a
very long time to copy the default user profile for each new user that logs
in. We disabled what start up options we could in msconfig, but the problem
still persists.

I searched around on the internet for a solution, but turned up mostly
nothing. Basically I was wondering if it is possible to use just one
profile; When a user logs in with their campus login I want it to just use
this one profile, and not make a copy of it every time for each new user. I
think it would speed up login times due to the profile already being loaded
on the machine. On log-out the profile would just 'default' back to its
original settings.

All user files are stored on a network storage and, as such, there is no
need for separate profiles with separate 'my documents' folders. Other user
settings (favorites, log files, etc) are also all stored on a server. I
should also note that our networking team has not yet implemented active
directory or roaming profiles.

So is it possible to just create one profile in which ever user uses?

 

[Guest]

Consider instituting a logon and logoff script (XP Pro Edition only). The
script could run a system restore point restore on logoff, putting the system
back to before the profile alteration. The logon script could create a point.

--myrestore.vbs--
set SysResPoint = getobject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:Systemrestore")
CSRP = SysResPoint.createrestorepoint (" test", 0, 100)
--end file-

 

[Guest]

Thank you for both responses, but this leads me to a separate question. If I
continue using the windows login that copies the default profile, what other
ways can I speed up login times? Are there more registry tweaks besides
editing the msconfig that I should know about?