[Jayce]

I did the following:

Right click Default User Profile
Properties
Security Tab
Advanced
Selected "Everyone" and hit EDIT
I set Everyone to have full control, however, I get errors. For one, it says under Inherited From - <not inherited>, and when I hit apply/okay I get an error.

An error occured while applying security information to:

C Users Default Application Data

Access is denied.

I'm on the local administrator account known simply as "administrator."

Is this a problem that it isn't inherited + that I get access denied? Because now I can see that everyone is checked off for full control, despite getting that error.

[synergy]

On Properties > Security > Advanced > User/Group > Edit you should see a checkbox that says "Include inhertiable permissions...." Uncheck that and should will be able to set special permissions on that folder.

EDIT: I just tried it on Server 08 and it worked fine. You do need to confirm whether you want to Copy or Remove the inherited permissions. I selected Copy which left the assigned user permissions.

[Jayce]

I'll give that a shot. At the moment I'm trying to get my mouse to work again. My mouse sincerely stopped working in the process of trying to double click my computer. The driver is installed, tried different mice, etc. Once I cross this bridge, I'll try the suggestion you just gave me.

Come on, Vista...

[Jayce]

synergy - I just tried what you suggested. I can hit "copy" and I get no errors, but when I try to hit apply + okay, I get "Access is Denied."

[synergy]

Hmm....Do you hit continue until you get no errors? I tried it on Vista last night and got what you are talking about, but if I just kept hitting continue through each folder error the permissions still applied.

[Jayce]

I just remember hitting copy where you saw copy, remove, cancel, and it was fine. Then apply/okay gave me the access is denied error. That was it, so I just hit cancel and got out of everything.

But I'll have to get back to you on that... I have a new problem now. After I got the access is denied error, I went to log off the administrator account and I accidentally hit restart instead. Now it blue screens every time I boot up.

I quit at computers. This is getting crazy.

EDIT - Wooo! Thank the IT God for backups! I ran FOG and pulled a backup image just before I tried ANY profile tweaks. That way if I screwed up badly I could kick the image back out and in 5 minutes I'd be back to square one. Vista + Programs + Profile Set + Just gotta copy it to default...

But anyway, can you think of why this would have happened? I swear on my life, I ran FOG, pulled a backup image, rebooted... it did a checkdisk which is normal. Afterwards I booted up, read your post above, did the thing ran into the access denied error, rebooted, BSOD. I mean, at worst, the profiles would have been corrupt. Why a BSOD?

EDIT Again - I just did the same thing that I did last time, and no BSOD. I don't understand it. I am 100% certain I uploaded the image, rebooted, it was fine, went to this thread on my laptop, made the profile changes with copy, apply okay, etc, rebooted, BSOD. Now I don't have a BSOD. What the...

Edit for the third time:

I came in to work today, pushed the backup image to the Studio computer. I ran across something on Google finally that suggested I don't need to worry about inheriting permissions and whatnot, just as long as the basic security is full control. So I made sure of that, right clicked my computer - properties - clicked on some advanced setting feature and I found myself with the user profile section. I selected Administrator and then Copy To and I copied it to the default user folder. I logged on a new local user account and to my surprise, I pulled all of the proper things! I was so excited I could actually get my work done now. Then I restarted the computer. BSOD.

Seriously, what the ****?

[Jayce]

Still trying to iron this out.

I kept finding this site on google. It didn't make much sense to me but I figured I'd build on it here.






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How to use Sysprep to customize a default local user profile

1. Use the administrator account or an account that has administrative credentials to log on to the computer.
2. Configure the settings that you want to use in the profile. This includes desktop settings, favorites, and Start menu options.
3. Create an Unattend.xml file that contains the CopyProfile parameter. This parameter must be set to true in the specialized pass. For example, the parameter must be as follows:
<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
4. At a command prompt, type the following command:
sysprep.exe /generalize /unattend:unattend.xml
Note You must use the /generalize switch for the CopyProfile parameter to be used.
5. Capture the image.
6. Deploy the image.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay. That's cool. Except when I run that command, I get a "this is not a recognized command" error.

Am I to download sysprep?
Is sysprep somehow integrated in Vista?
Is there a command I'm supposed to run to activate sysprep in Vista?

So even if I run that, what do I do with it? Do I somehow integrate the XML file with the profile to auto-copy the settings over?



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes

* The built-in administrator account profile is deleted when you perform a clean Windows installation or when you run the Sysprep tool. The CopyProfile setting is processed before the built-in administrator account is deleted. Therefore, any customizations that you make will appear in the new user account profile. This includes the built-in administrator account profile settings.
* Not all customizations will propagate to new profiles. Some settings are reset by the new user logon process. To configure those settings, use Group Policy settings or scripting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





The thing that's really scary here is they even list here that not all of the parameters of each applications will copy over. What parameters and settings in particular are they referring to? (if anybody can give me an example).

I guess we were just spoiled by the ease of default profiles in XP, because there's a truckload of very specific settings we need to utilize. I'm trying my best to understand them in Vista and try to get Vista to play in the same manner we run XP.

Also - Is there a way to run this without it, for whatever reason, auto-deleting the local administrator profile? Cause... uh... we need the local administrator account/profile to be present and active.


How to customize the default local user profile when you prepare an image of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003

[Mak213]

Svrops.com - Deploying Vista with Sysprep and Imagex

Maybe that will be a bit more helpful?

Woudl require this to get working properly:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

That is the WAIK, a tool that is used to help create the sysprep image. The site i linked to has a ton more of info.

[Jayce]

Thanks Mak. I'm still having some slight misunderstanding of it and I'm wondering if you could shed some light.

With XP Pro, I make the image into 1 usable ready-to-go package. That package has the default profile. It's flat-out ready to go for whoever logs in next, regardless of what imaging program I use to deploy it.

If I use the sysprep utility you linked me to, does that make the Vista image "ready" like it does with XP? Or does using ImageX do something after the imaging process that configures the default profile to be "ready". Does that make sense?

Reason I ask this if sysprep "preps" the Vista image to be 100% ready on the fly, then I can still utilize FOG to clone it accordingly. But if ImageX does something after the actual deployment to "activate" it (or activate the default profile), then.... well... we're stuck. A ton of people on the FOG forum use Vista, I really should ask there to see what they do.

[Mak213]

Alright from my understanding of this whole thing this is what i get.

Capturing an Image

Now that you have configured your reference PC and ran sysprep.exe on it, you are ready to capture an image of the PC and store it on a network server. Once you have an image of the reference PC, you can use it to setup all your other PCs.

Get your WinPE 2.0 USB flash drive or CD and boot your reference PC with it. This will boot the PC into Windows PE. Once in Windows PE you will use ImageX to capture an image of the PC. Using ImageX to capture an image is very easy.

This is done AFTER you have the image all ready to go. It uses ImageX to create the image. Now if my understanding is correct on this, SysPrep was already done and the image is ready to be made and should work as you want it to. Meaning that it should be good to go with the Default Profile.

At that point i would assume that you could bypass using ImageX and that whole process from that point on and go with FOG and create your image as it is and deploy it.

From what i am seeing ImaegX is based around a network install, which can be good but at the same time is extra work. From my understanding of this is that once you are done with the sysprep steps, you should be able to do what you normally do and run FOG and deploy.

From my understanding ImageX is basically like FOG, Clonezilla and so on and creates a network install disk that you insert into the system to use for deployment. That shouldnt be necessary.

Sorry about not being able to give exact answers. While i know of sysprep and have seen it used and work, I have not personally done it myself. I will continue to assist you and try to help you overcome these issues as quickly as possible.