Advice for Creating a Custom Default User Profile in Windows Enterprise 8/8.1 Preview

Just after some advice on the Best way to create a custom Default User Profile for our Windows 8 Enterprise Image.
We are also looking at the Windows 8.1 Enterprise preview so advice on creating a Default User profile for this would also be appreciated.
My Requirements are listed below
-Pinned Web sites that open in Windows 8 App style IE
-Default Windows 8 pre-installed Apps
-The Microsoft Lync Windows 8 Client from the App Store *I understand this would be tricky, not fussed though if it cant be done*
-Customised Start screen layout
I have tried the Copy Profile tag in the Unattend.xml and syspreped the machine, this did not work.
I have tried using the new "Start Screen Layout" Group Policy object, this also did not work
The Closest I can get was to setup a user profile, Backup the Default User profile, Rename the User I worked on to "Default", Clean up the temp folder, then navigate through the user registry and replaced any absolute profile paths with the %USERPROFILE%
variable. This worked in terms of setting the layout of the start screen, but the Lync App was not present, and Windows 8 apps, eg Video, Music and IE, would crash when attempting to open them.
I know I am doing something wrong, so any advice would be much appreciated.
Thankyou

Still not getting the results that I want, to recap I am trying to do the following.
Create a Windows 8.1 Enterprise Standard Operating Environment (SOE) Image for laptop devices at our school. These devices will be in the Students hands 24/7 and will be joined to our Windows 2012 based domain.
I am trying to create a custom Default user profile for the image so that when a student logs onto the Laptop for the first time they get a start screen that we have created.
The start screen consists of Pre-installed Modern Apps, a modern app created by our Software team that is side-loaded, Office 2013 Applications, and most importantly Tiles for Websites such as our Learning Management System and Intranet Portal.
Now to the issues
I boot the target system into Audit mode, and setup the start screen accordingly. For the Websites,
I open the websites in the IE11 Modern app and use the built in control to pin the site to the start screen. Everything goes and looks as expected.
I then run sysprep with a custom unattend.xml with copyprofile inside it. Again everything runs as expected.
Now when I create a new user on the system the custom start screen appears however the websites that were pinned are no longer on the start screen. BUT when I manually open the Modern IE11 app, navigate to the website and pin the site, The Tile now appears
on the start screen in the location I put it.
<Rant>
Now this puts us in a situation where we can no longer deliver a Standard Operating environment for not just our managed laptops but also our labs where a student just wants to logon and get to work.
Why as a Desktop and System Administrator, who manages a fleet of 300+ Desktops and 1000+ Laptops do I not have the full power to customise things they way I want them.
Yes I am aware of the new Group Policy setting for deploying Start screen configurations, Doesn't work when Web sites are pinned
Yes I am aware of AppsFolderLayout.bin, Doesn't work for Pinned sites.
Do the links above to Microsoft TechNet articles explaining how to customise Start Screens help, No they do not.
Finally I am aware that I can just create a shortcut to the websites and pin those, the issue is that this does not utilise the new Live Tile code that was introduced with IE11 and we plan to use these Tiles as another notification system for our staff and
students.
I will continue to work on this, if I manage to find a solution myself I will post the process, however if anyone in the community, or from Microsoft for that matter, has a proven solution to pinning websites to the default user profiles start screen, please
post it.
</Rant>
Thankyou

Similar Messages

When creating a custom default user profile for an image, I get the error "A keychain cannot be found to store "safari" when a new user logs in for the first time.

My "profile" account works flawlessly with the exception of safari. I had copied the entire user template folder to the default location in OS X 10.10 and removed the entire keychain folder. However, whenever someone logs into the computer for the first time and opens Safari, they are greeted with the error message "A keychain cannot be found to store safari".

If you've just changed your login password in Recovery mode, follow these instructions. Otherwise, see below.
At some point, you may have reset your keychain to default in Keychain Access. That action would have caused your login keychain to be renamed.
Back up all data before proceeding.
In Keychain Access, delete the login keychain from the keychain list. Choose Delete References when prompted, not Delete References & Files.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
~/Library/Keychains
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V), and press return. A folder will open. Rename the file "login.keychain" in that folder to something like "login-old.keychain". Rename the file "login_renamed_1.keychain" to "login.keychain". You can then close the folder.
Back in Keychain Access, select
File ▹ Add Keychain...
from the menu bar. Add back the file now named "login.keychain". If any of your needed keychain items are missing from it, also add back the file you named "login-old.keychain". I suggest you transfer any needed items from that keychain to the login keychain, then delete it. The transfers are made by drag-and-drop in Keychain Access. You'll need to enter your password for each item transferred.

Is there a way to create a custom default profile in mavericks?

Hi,
There was a way to do this by copying profile folders in 10.7/10.8, but it doesn't seem to work with Mavericks. The instructions I used are here:
http://sites.sas.upenn.edu/jasonrw/blog/2013/03/create-custom-default-user-profi le-os-x-107108
Now, when I follow the same instructions with Mavericks, I get a local keychain error, despite having removed the login keychain all together.
Thoughts?
Many thanks in advance

What? You're stymied? All I can suggest is to try Apple Support.

Using copyprofile to customize the default user profile

Well to get to the problem I'll just explain what I do, which doesn't work.
1. I install windows 8.1 pro (x64) on a test-pc.
2. After installation I press cntrl shift f3 to get into audit mode.
3. I install all software/drivers etc. I also place shortcuts and change the background.
4. I insert my usb, which contains a file called "unattend.xml" in which this is written:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<settings pass="specialize">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
</component>
</settings>
<cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:e:/usb/windows%207%20en%208/win81pro/sources/install.wim#Windows 8.1 Pro (x64)" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>
5. After that I use CMD and use this command: C:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown /unattend:F:\unattend.xml
6. when it is done working and turns off, I turn it back on and walk through the oobe. After that my shortcuts and background are standard windows 8.1 and not the ones I used.
Can anyone see what I did wrong? I can't seem to figure it out. Thanks!
Btw: This unattend.xml file is created with windows system image manager of the same install.wim which is used to install that OS.
Note: If I generalize a pc after an installation, doesn't that cancel the activation? So when I bring it to a customer he needs to fill in the activation key?

Hi,
After the step 5 (I mean after we customize the default user profile and reference PC sutts down), generally as I know, we should then capture image, you can boot into Windows PE and then capture the Windows installation by using DISM.
See full guide in the link below
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/library/hh825135.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
The article also contains some conditions in which user profile settings aren't successfully copied, such as you can not use a domain account, there are no additional user accounts other than the built-in administrator account that you configured,, etc and
sysprep will remove all the security settings of your Windows including windows activation.
Regards
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

How do I create a custom sound/vibration profile per app, SMS text, phone, or email contact?

I have a Verizon iPhone 4s recently upgraded to iOS 7. I'm an IT engineer who's on call and started a new job last week with a company that doesn't provide company phones like a blackberry. So now I get tons of company email alerts, text messages, and phone calls both private and for work. I always have my phone switched to vibrate to filter out the noise of generic emails/texts/phone calls, but I also need to be able to configure specific emails sent from our network monitoring servers, text messages from my teammates and alerting devices, as well as phone calls from our internal tech support to be sent with sound. Ideally I also need to be able to configure alert options in an "On-call" profile I can switch on so that I can configure alert repeats and the most annoying noise I can find so I don't sleep through network pages.. But I still want to be able to keep the default vibrate for everyone else and everything else.. How do I create a custom sound/vibration profile per app, SMS text, phone, or email contact? In blackberry's, you can easily create different profiles to switch back/forth and configure each app/text/phone option to either a sound option or vibrate. iPhone seems to be all vibrate or all sound, with little to no options to mix/match the two.. If Apple ever hopes to truly capture the enterprise market blackberry has, this is the most standard and essential feature on blackberries for IT professionals.. If I have to buy a third-party app for this, so be it. But I've been searching for hours and found nothing that creates customized sound/vibrate profiles for iPhone like this (minus jailbreaking your phone, but I shouldn't have to jailbreak a $699 "smartphone" for simple sound/vibrate/alert options like this..).

Yeah Appke wants to be like RIM (Blackberry) who is sinking fast and their devices will be door stops.
http://www.apple.com under support you can ask at their forum or you can call them. However if you call under ios7 support they may help you for free. But if not they will cost you $$$$
As far as I can tell with my iphone what you want to do is not possible. There are sites that tell you how to make different ringtones for the device but your choices to change sounds for email and text/sms messages are controlled unders sounds in the setting menu. Again the manual is on your phone and online if you need assistance changing sounds and ringtones.
Good Luck

Can't see user id in Application server after enabling default user profile

Hi,
We have implemented SSO and during that implementation, we had to enable the default user profiles so that the request can move from the web server to the app server without authentication. So as a result of this, we are not able to see the user id for all the logged in users in application server. It shows as "Forgot Password" (which is the name of default profile) for all the connections. Is there anything we can do to see the logged in users user id instead of "Forgot Password"?

Hi Daniel!
I understand that the result you see in the Worklist monitor doesn't help.Did you try the recommendation in the FAQ.
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.km.cm.docs/library/mi/mobile application faq/mam client faq.faq#q-4
If it doesnot help, try the following
(1)In the SPRO under MAM Customizing settings, go in to
"Assign Orders and Stocks to a Technician" and then double click the "Assignment Profile(Assigned to your MAM User ID in User dependant data)" and change the Order Assignment & Notification Assignment to "User-->Employee Number", if it is assigned to a Work Center OR a Planner Group.You can reset this back to the original settings later if required.
(2)Replicate the MAM25_090 & MAM25_095 via transaction MEREP_EX_REPLIC in the middleware.
(3) Synchronize the data from your MI Client
(4) If no data exists Monitor your Worklist as you did earlier.
Let me know.
Thx
Gisk
Message was edited by: Gisk

Help with default user profile

I have created a default user profile using a local account. Once I have the local account I copy the home folder to /System/Library/"User Template"/English.lproj
I do
chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/"User Template"/English.lproj
From the terminal as root
I log in with an Active Directory account and the profile is exactly as I created with one caveat, safari is trying to save to the dummy user accounts desktop instead of the logged in users account.

It seems to me that when ".plist" files contain references to other files or folders, most require full paths and they won't accept anything to represent a generic "home". Either that, or items are represented by "alias" data, referring to a specific file, which would be completely independent of paths. That of course means that any sort of "template" account must avoid containing references to items within the "home" folder because the template will contain references to the original items, not their counterparts in the new user's home. Note that things like the "sidebar" in a regular account or the "Dock" in a "Simple Finder" do contain shortcuts to items within the "home" folder, but these aren't generated from ".plist" files in the template but rather are generated on the fly by "Finder" during login.
In the case of the default download location for "Safari", I think it defaults to the user's "Desktop" in the absence of a ".plist" file. However, if the user changes the location, then a ".plist" file is created at that point. It would also appear that the default download location is set to the user's "Desktop" if the default Safari "home page" is changed, which also causes the same file to be created. The file appears to be: "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist"
I haven't tested this to see if it would work, but it might be possible to modify your existing template to remove the reference to the "download folder" while retaining the desired Safari "home page" using something along these lines:<pre style="overflow:auto; padding: 5px; width: 500px ; font-size: 10px; border:1">sudo defaults delete /System/Library/User\ Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/com.apple.internetconfigpriv DownloadFolder</pre>

Windows 8 Logon times default user profile size

With the addition of Chromebooks and other devices that boot in 3 seconds, we are re-evaluating our Windows 8 environment. Windows 8 does boot up much quicker, but our domain logon times are still 2+ minutes or more if there is no user profile.
So I took our policies down to the bare minimum to see what is really taking forever for computers to log on.
Using unattend.xml, we use the copyprofile flag to customize the default desktop experience for our users. The default profile then becomes 185MB and I'd like to try and reduce that to improve logon times when no profile exists. The
following folders are where the majority of space is being used and I want to know if I can delete them in the default user profile.
25MB c:\users\default\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\explorer - Icon and Tile Cache
40MB c:\users\default\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\WebCache - log files in machine language
7MB c:\users\default\appdata\local\microsoft\windows\notification
7MB c:\users\default\appdata\locallow\adobe\shockwave player 11\xtras\download\adobesystemsincorporated
3MB c:\users\deafult\appdata\roaming\microsoft\Bibliography
4MB c:\users\deafult\appdata\roaming\microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\15\Built-in Building Blocks.dotx
How fast can I make it? I used autologon registry keys to logon to a domain account (non-administrator). Timings are from totally off to viewing the Start Screen.
The BIOS on our HP 6306 takes about 12 seconds to even start booting Windows 8 and so the total boot time till the start menu shows is 25 seconds with Windows 8 taking 13 seconds to boot and logon. That is really, really nice.
So then I added 3 mapped drives (not redirection) and one printer to the group policy and that didn't add any time once the profile was created.
Creating a profile is what really slows down the logon process. Granted this is much after after the profile is done, but the vast manjory of our machines are public with random students/staff logging on to them.
More testing to come.

Were you able to reduce the size of the default profile?
If you found this post helpful, please give it a "Helpful" vote. If it answered your question, remember to mark it as an "Answer".

How do you setup default user profiles in 10.4.9?

I am getting ready to image 30 machine. Is there away to setup a default user profile for when anyone that logs into the machine they all will have the default wall paper, web home page, printers and screen saver? This will make it easier to help keep all of the machines standard.

I have the security part taken care of but I want to create a default profile with out having to re image this Mac's..
(I'm sorry but I'm a Windows user mainly) is there an equivalent to the "Default User" profile on Mac?
so I can copy this desktop shortcuts to this user and automatically have them created on each new user that logs on to the computer.

URGENT - How do I attach an unattend file in SCCM to copy a local profile to default users profile? - URGENT

We are using SCCM to capture an OS image with the hopes of deploying this image to multiple computers. However, we are having issues with copying the admin profile to the default users profile. THIS PROCESS IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE IN OUR PROCESS. Does
anyone know of to copy the admin profile to the default users profile?
We already have an uattend file to use but we don't know how or where to apply it within SCCM. PLEASE HELP!
Thanks in advance.

Hi,
Here is how to do it for
Windows 7,
http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Research/tabid/62/EntryId/43/How-CopyProfile-really-works-in-Windows-7-Deployments.aspx
Windows 8:http://windowsdeployments.net/using-copyprofile-in-unattend-xml-to-customize-windows-8/
You need to add CopyProfile=True to the Unattend.xml file that you use to deploy the image.
Regards,
Jörgen
-- My System Center blog ccmexec.com -- Twitter
@ccmexec

Using SPML to create a custom end user interface?

We are trying to create a custom end user interface which uses SPML to communicate with our IDM server. The issue we have is whether there is a way to login to IDM from this end user interface as the end user, or at least run the end user functionality such as password changes and authentication question setup as the end user without giving all end users SPML capabilities. Right now we have created a special SPML user account and we have given that user broad capabilities. We are able to change passwords and set questions but the auditing just shows the SPML user as the subject for all these actions.
Thanks,

It looks like you are absolutely right.
I also cannot find that zlman option.
So it looks like you are the first that needs it.
We use zlman to create bundles and add packages when we build them in our rpm build environment, but at that time that are always new packages that need top be uploaded. So the bundle-add-package is what we use, but that doesn't help with packages in the repository.
So I would write a enhancement request for it ...
http://www.novell.com/rms
As a workaround, not a nice one of course, you can search for the package in the repository and upload it once again. It should recognize that and create just the package links to the bundle. Not nice, but it seems to be the only option for now.
Rainer

Why do u need a custom structure for creating a custom bapi

Hi ,
why do u need a custom structure for creating a custom bapi.

Hi,
Once any Bapi realeased the structures it is using freezed to this bapi, the structure becomes specific to this Bapi, we can not make any changes over there. That is why we need custom structure for creating a custom bapi.

User profile in WINDOWS 8.1, 8, 7 redirected to C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile

Hi all,
When you are logging into Windows 8.1,8 or 7 using your user credential you will finaly end up as system service account or at least your profile will be recognized this way. This mean that system is now looking in C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile
for DESKTOP, DOCUMENTS etc.
I faced this probem few times on diffrent PCs. This problem has been out there for some time and peapole are tring to copy their profile to C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile. Sound no good for me.
Another way is to create new profile but it takes a lot of time and the problem sometimes comes back
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-corrupted-user-profile#1TC=windows-7
I manage to find out that the issue has something to do with the change of the registry at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-X-X-XX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
S-X-X-XX-XXXXXXXXX is your user SID. The to REG_DWORD that are changed
FLAGS
REFCOUNT
After you change values to FLAGS 1 and REFCOUNT 0 you have to log out. Now log in and you profile should be back again.
I hope that this will save you some time and that microsoft will finaly fix whatever cause this issue.

Hi Grzegorz,
Thanks for sharing and it will be very useful for the people who will come across the similar symptom in the future .
Best regards
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

Trouble getting the default user directory under Windows XP

I m trying to get the default user directory under windows XP SP3.
To do so, I'm using
System.getProperty("user.home");
I was expecting to get a path like "C:\Documents and Settings\user", nstead of that I get "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Destop".
I checked the %USERPROFILE% and %HOMEPATH% window's environment variables and both of them are correctly set ( set to "C:\Documents and Settings\user").
Is there any way to get the right path other than using : System.setProperty("user.home", "C:\\Documents and Settings\\user"); ?

Thanks WalterLaan,
The System.getenv("USERPROFILE") method will, at least, fix the problem under win XP.
I guess i'll have to write a more refined method to be able to deploy my application under differents OSes.
Regards.

Create default user settings like WIndows XP

When I configure a Windows machine I can make the desktop and all application settings I want. I then copy the profile to the DEFAULT USER account. Now when any user is created on that machine it takes on all the same settings as the default account.
This allows me to set proxy settings in all browsers, setup printers, backgrounds, and other other preferences. the new account gets these settings on creation.
How do I do this on the macintosh? When it creates a new user they all look the same so there must be some plist files or settings somewhere I can change when I build the image.
We have 850+ machines running 10.4 through 10.6. We use a firewall in transparent mode because the mac's cant handle the proxy settings with all the roaming profiles and home/synced accounts.
If I can get all new accounts created to take on the necessary settings by default we can switch our firewall to non transparent and that opens up a lot of features we must have. Plus it would be nice to have the same look and feel on every single account.
Lannie

/System/Library/User Template is where all of these are stored. You will have enable the root login account and log in to it in order to make changes to that folder with the GUI.
Changing anything in the System folder is always a bit unreliable, though. Apple might release a software update that will undo any of the changes.
If you really are managing 850+ Macs, you should look into getting OS X Server. OS X Server has the tools you need to set up custom templates for new users, without having to muck in the System folder.

Advice for Creating a Custom Default User Profile in Windows Enterprise 8/8.1 Preview

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for