If you are preparing a Windows 7 image for your lab, chances are you will want to have everyone who logs into the computer start with the same visual layout and program settings.
When you first log on to a Windows 7 machine, if you do not already have a profile one is created for you from the profile in C:\Users\Default. For a lab administrator this is good news since you can give every user the same experience by having program shortcuts and other settings already presented to them in the way that you decide. So how can we take advantage of this feature?
First, you need to have one local administrator account on your image base machine. For the purposes of this article, the account will be called template and will be located in C:\Users\Template. Log in to the template account and perform all software installations and system updates as needed. Now would be a good time to set any lab specific wallpaper and arrange the desktop shortcuts as you would like them. This is also the time to set any specific software configurations.
Once you are done with installing, configuring, and arranging things it is time to do a little housecleaning. If you look in C:\Users\Template\AppData (AppData is a hidden folder, so you will either have to show hidden folders or manually type the path into the address bar to get there) you will see three subfolders: Local, LocalLow, and Roaming. These folders can be quite large and that can slow down your log in time. You don’t want to delete everything, as this is where a lot of your configuration settings are stored. However, there are often temp files, cached installers, and other cache files that can safely be deleted. In practice I have found the total profile (most of which is taken up by AppData) to be between 50-100 MB, which seems to yield a log in time of under a minute. You will have to find the proper balance between configurations and fast login time for your lab.
After this it is time to run sysprep and pull your image. As mentioned in my article on configuring the unattend.xml file (http://www.labmonkeys.net/blog/features-of-windows-7-unattend-xml-for-lab-administrators/) you will need to specify <CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile> in the <settings pass=”specialize”> section. This will tell sysprep to copy your local administrator account to the default account.
by Christopher Taverna
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I’ve tried this method and it doesn’t work well for my tastes. Sysprep blows away a lot of my customizations (i.e. keyboard layouts that I’ve installed) and it just generally tampers with my profile in ways I don’t want it to. I ended up following these instructions and they worked fine for my lab image:
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/windows-7-copy-default-profile
Personal preference. Glad you found a method that works for you. I have seen various errors following the method in your linked article that all went away following the Microsoft best practice. Of course everyone has a different experience. The one thing I wanted to comment on was the article you linked said that you can’t follow Microsoft’s method and use Symantec Ghost. I use Symantec Ghost for my imaging and if anything, Ghost makes following this method easier.
Cheers!
I’m failing to understand how this “Template” user is associated with the final Default profile. If Sysprep’s CopyProfile is enabled, it only copies the Administrator profile to the Default profile. How does the Template profile get copied to the Default profile?
I am using “Template” as an example. In Windows 7 the account “Administrator” is disabled by default. During setup you are asked to create an account, at which point you can name it Template or whatever. It is this administrative account that will get copied. Honestly, I have not tried enabling the “Administrator” account, so I am not sure how that will impact things. I suppose if you want to use the built in “Administrator” account then that would be your template account. However, best practice is to leave “Administrator” disabled.
Sysprep copies the profile of whichever user you are logged onto your reference machine with, at least in my testing. That being said, I have converted to using the microsoft recommended way that you discuss here, Chris. I did eventually run into issues with the background wallpaper not functioning properly. I am still in the process of finding a way to push keyboard layouts via GPO, any suggestions?
As a side note, I would recommend setting up your default user environment while in sysprep audit mode, which would mean that you are actually logged in as the local administrator account in the first place.