Sysprep 2.0 and custom Default User Profiles

[lawson23 0]

Hi,

I'm having some problems with creating a custom default profile when I use the Sysprep 2.0 utility for XP. I go in and customize a profile just how I want everything, then I log in as the admin and copy the profile to Default user with everyone having rights to it. I have read that you should not do the copy over the default user anymore with XP to customize but I do not know anyother way. I have read that you should use sysprep and I think that is why I'm getting the changes after running it. I can not find or figure out how to use sysprep to do this task. Help please! No AD environment yet.

[DS3Circuit 0]

HOW TO: Create a Custom Default User Profile

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q305709

 

The Desktop.ini File Does Not Work Correctly When You Create a Custom Default Profile

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;321281

 

How to Assign the Administrator Profile to Other Users

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;156568

 

The second link I believe gives addendums to the first link so that it will work in Windows XP.

 

Any particular reason you are using Sysprep?? installation on numerous hardware platforms or is it just for a new sid??

 

If its just a new sid, I found it to be easier to just use newsid.exe and just ghost the machines over and over .....

 

My $0.02

[lawson23 0]

I have already viewed all these articles and I'm doing exactly what they say. As you can see though in the second one Q321281 It states:

Quote:

The supported method of building a customized profile for deployment purposes is to use the Sysprep tool. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

314472 Quick Guide to Preinstalling Windows

But you go to the other article and all it explains to you is how to reseal the machine which doesn't customize the profile at all!

 

Yes the reason I'm using sysprep is to generate a new sid. I'm also starting to use it with the -clean to remove hardware profiles because I"m having trouble with getting only one ghost to work with mulitple Hardware profiles anymore. If I can create a new sid with newsid.exe I will try that though because that will fix my problem with it changing the default user profile.

 

Do you know of a file I can run that will do the -clean with sysprep (of course I have not fully tested this yet to verify it fixes my problem) But my images don't startup with different hardware profiles anymore. The -clean made it sound like it would fix this problem and it seems like I did try it once on a machine and it worked, hard for me to remember.

 

If anyone knows how to fix my problem with running the Sysprep utility I would be interested in knowing that also.

[lawson23 0]

Where is this newsid.exe located? I searched my entire HD for it and could not find the exe. Also found nothing on Microsoft supporting or using this method? Please provide more information.

[jstark 0]

We use Ghost v.8 to image our WinXP/2000 PCs. Sysprep deletes our ability to customize the Default User in XP (works fine in W2000) as other posts in this thread indicate.

 

Has anyone a method to ghost and not lose the ability to customize the Default User. Is there an alternative to Sysprep for XP?

 

[adamvjackson 0]

I haven't tried this, but I wonder if you could script something with Sysinternal's NewSid utility.