Setting up a sysprepped image with user account customisations

I'm trying to create a sysprepped image of a Windows installation for cloning (basically, as a VM template I can clone to create throwaway test environments quickly). I'm using a new build of Windows 8.1, going into audit mode and configuring my environment,
then using sysprep to generalise the image for cloning (sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:C:\MyUnattendFile.xml).
I have customised the default account by setting things up the way I want in audit mode (under the administrator account that audit mode defaults to). My unattend.xml file has CopyProfile set to true (in the specialize phase, the only one I can set it in
IIRC). I also have my local account configured for creation in the OOBE phase in the unattend.xml file.
When I boot a copy of the sysprepped image, it starts up fine, exactly as I'd expect. But when it gets to the OOBE phase, it goes into the "Setting up a few things" sequence, and when I get the login screen and log in, I see a clean account (default
start page and taskbar, Windows theme is the default, etc). It's as if the default profile I set up hasn't been applied.
I can't tell what I am doing wrong - I saw a note somewhere (via google) that I need to set CopyProfile in the unattend file I boot from, not the one I sysprep with, but that can't be right as in this case I'm not incorporating the image into a setup process
- it's just a VM disk image that I boot normally.
I'm new to all this, and I'm a developer rather than a deployment specialist, so the discussion around images, PE boot disks, custom install disks, etc, is very confusing to me. If I'm doing something wrong, I'd appreciate any explanation someone can give
as to how to achieve what I want relatively simply.
Many thanks in advance,
Paul

I checked the log file, and I see "CopyProfileDirectory from C:\Users\Administrator succeeded. CopyProfile succeeded."
So it looks like the default profile was set up properly.
The desktop background is set correctly on the account, it's just the start page and taskbar, so the blog entry you mentioned seems like it's relevant. The problem is, there's no solution given in there :-(
From what I can see, the issue appears to be that when I initially log onto the user account created in the unattended startup, it runs the "first login" process - "Hi... We're setting things up for you... Installing your apps". So I
guess the key question is how I stop it from running that process, which is messing up the customisations I already made.
From the articles you mention, it seems like there isn't a particularly straightforward way to script the start page/taskbar changes I want. I didn't see anything that suggested I could make the changes once, then back up some data from the registry and/or
some user config files, and then set up a postinstall script to restore them (that probably still wouldn't work, as the "Hi... We're setting things up" process would probably still overwrite them :-(
If it's not possible to do things this way, maybe I'm going to have to go down the route of making a custom install disk. Is there a simple tutorial that assumes no deployment experience, and walks through the process of creating a custom install disk that
includes:
Setting the product key, the default language/locale etc (a fully unattended install)
Selecting to overwrite the whole disk, no dialog about disk partitions, etc
Create a local user account
Install various items of software (7-zip, conemu, virtualbox guest additions, chrome, probably a few others)
Pre-configure the local account with a custom start page, taskbar items, program settings like Internet Explorer home page and search providers and conemu defaults, desktop background
Set up a few other configurations (such as enabling WinRM) that can be done from an automated postinstall Powershell script.
I'm assuming this must be possible somehow, as I can't imagine corporate deployments will use the default start page. It's just how to do this as a home user. I just have a single PC, plus I can set up any VirtualBox VMs I need on it, so approaches
that talk about setting up a lab of machines and deployment servers and shares are probably out of my reach :-(
Thanks,
Paul

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