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Friday, July 22, 2011

Create and Copy Roaming User Profiles in Windows XP

Windows 7: Copy A Modified User Profile
Source
Create a Roaming Profile

To create a roaming profile, follow these steps:
  1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu that appears.
  2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under User Profiles.
  3. In the Profiles stored on this computer list, click the profile that you want.
  4. To change the type of profile, click Change Type, click Roaming profile, and then click OK.
Copy a User Profile
To copy an existing user profile to another user's account, follow these steps:
  1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu that appears.
  2. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under User Profiles.
  3. In the Profiles stored on this computer list, click the profile that you want to copy.
  4. Click Copy To.
  5. In the Copy To dialog box, do one of the following:
    • In the Copy profile to box, type the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path to the target user's profile folder. For example type the following:
      \\ServerName\ShareName\UsersProfileDirectory
      -or-
    • Click Browse, and then navigate to the user profile folder that you want to copy the profile to. Click OK.
  6. Under Permitted to use, click Change. Type the name of the user that will be permitted to use this profile, and then click OK.

    NOTE: Verify that you are not choosing users or groups from a Microsoft Windows NT-based domain, because Windows XP is designed to use Active Directory to select domains.
  7. In the Copy To dialog box, click OK. If you receive a "Confirm Copy" message, click Yes.
  8. Click OK twice.
Update the User Profile Path
Update the user profile path to point to the new profile. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. On a domain controller, start the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in. Expand the domain, and then expand the organizational unit that contains the user account that you want.
  2. Right-click the user account that you want, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu that appears.
  3. Click the Profile tab, and then type the UNC path to the new profile folder in the Profile path box.
  4. Click Apply, and then click OK.
After the user has successfully logged on, the profile is saved on the server as a roaming profile, and any profile changes are saved to the server. COPY TO button grayed out
UPDATE: This method is no longer supported. You need to create an additional account and copy it over that account (and not over the default user profile).
To copy a user profile in XP do the following:
Open System applet in Control Panel (or right-click My Computer and choose Properties). Click the Advanced tab.

In the User Profiles section click Settings.

Highlight the user profile you want to copy. Press Copy To.
You can't copy the profile you're currently logged in with. Also, I do believe that if you've ever been logged into a profile without rebooting you won't be able to copy that profile either. So you might have to restart before you can copy the profile.

To fix this "feature" you should log on as your preferred user (who should be an administrator, to make things easier), make all the needed changes, log off, log on as an administrator, then try to copy the previous user profile. Now it should work.
Note: To be clear, the best procedure based on Microsoft's recommendations, is NOT to use the built-in Administrator account. Read this:
How to create a custom default user profile
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=319974

In the Copy To dialog box enter the path to where you want to copy the profile to. You can also browse. The default location for the user's profile should be
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