Frustrating Image Problem

[kingsc]

Windows XP Professional w/SP3

I've created a universal image and have been deploying it for a while now. I've recently discovered an issue.

While setting up the image, I created a profile, named it testuser and configured it the way I wanted it to be whenever anyone logged in and a local profile is created. To do this, I copied the testuser profile and over-wrote the Default User profile.

Problem is, and there is probably a very simple fix, that when logged into the profile, and clicking the My Documents shortcut, everything is fine. However, If I were to log into a seperate account or access the computer remotely, if I manually browse to C:\Documents and Settings\<user>, instead of it saying "<user>'s Documents", it says "testuser's Documents" and if I browse into that, it says "testuser's pictures", etc.

I loaded up VMWare and did a fresh install of XP Pro w/SP3 and checked out the Default User folder there. I opened up c:\Documents and Settings\Default User\My Documents and it's empty.

I then tried deleting the testuser's pics, movies, music folders from the default profile of the imaged computer and then created a new account. I browsed to C:\Documents and Settings\<new user account> and the My Documents folder wasn't there. So I double click the My DOcuments shortcut on the desktop and it created the folder, but nothing inside of it.

I opened IE and attempted to save a picture in hopes it would restore the my pictures folder but nope. Nada. It just saved to the My Documents folder and that was it.

Any ideas? Must be a registry key edit somewhere?

[kingsc]

Wow, no one can even take a stab at this?

[SecretNinja]

try looking in the desktop.ini in the my documents folder. iirc this is what it uses to do the auto renaming. In my default user folder that file does not exsist. so i would guess removing it from yours will fix this. (its a hidden file so make sure they are visible)

[kingsc]

Awesome, thank you I'll look into it and get back to you.

[kingsc]

Welp, no desktop.ini file in the default user folder.

I created another test user, rebooted the computer, logged in, and did a search of the entire C: drive.

The only desktop.ini files that even turned up were not even worth mentioning, a notepad view showed two of them to be empty, and a nother being related to MSOffice, nothing specific to a profile.

Any other guesses? I'm going to look further into the desktop.ini and maybe research the ntuser.dat files.

EDIT - desktop.ini apparently has nothing to do with customizing profiles, only with customizing how a folder's contents is displayed.

Edited March 5, 2009 by kingsc

[IcemanND]

The desktop.ini files will control how say the "My documents" folder name is displayed when looking at it when logged in as a different user.

For example, if I log into my computer as Nobody and look at the profile of IcemanND the "My Documents" folder is displayed as "IcemanND's Documents" if I delete the desktop.ini file from this documents folder and look again it is now displayed as "My Documents". If I edit the desktop.ini file and change the value of the owner=IcemanND to owner=DNnamecI the "IcemanND's Documents" changes to "DNnamecI's Documents"

How that particular file is created and what get's put in it by default seems to be a mystery.

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

testuser's Documents is in fact due to desktop.ini but its the one in the default users my docs.

C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\My Documents\desktop.ini (hidden)

------------------------------------

[DeleteOnCopy]

Owner=testuser

Personalized=5

PersonalizedName=My Documents

------------------------------------

delete the line thats marked as red. (or the whole file)

it can also sometimes show data from the allusers my docs as well

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\desktop.ini (hidden)

which in every case ive seen this is all that should be there:

------------------------------------

[.ShellClassInfo]

LocalizedResourceName=@shell32.dll,-21785

------------------------------------

[cluberti]

This is why I strongly recommend NOT copying whole profiles, and only the NTUSER.DAT file - which is the registry, which is going to hold HKCU, which is really all you need.

[kingsc]

Ahhhhh very interesting! Thank you all for the responses!

I must admit that I don't know as much about imaging as I'd like and I was following a procedure I found on the web to create a base user profile and copy that to the default user profile. So your saying I could just copy over the ntuser.dat file and that would retain all profile settings?

But yeah, when I look in the Default User my docs folder, there is no desktop.ini. So I should create one I assume?

I need to see if I can research how to create one and how the parameters work, i.e. you mentioned "Owner" earlier... I wonder if you can do a Owner=%USERNAME% ?

EDIT - And apologies to Ninja, #1 you were right and #2 I didn't realize till now how my earlier statement sounded rude.

Edited March 6, 2009 by kingsc

[SecretNinja]

No probs. And I took no offense

The irony of windows how opaque it is

[kingsc]

Yuck, no love so far.

So first I tried editing the desktop.ini Owner line to read as %username%.

I created two profiles afterward; testuser1 and testuser2.

Logging into testuser1 looked perfect of course, because the desktop.ini's owner line was perfect for the other profile(ITAdmin).

However, upon logging into testuser2, looking at testuser1's documents revealed that this wasn't going to work; testuser1's documents actually showed up as "testuser2's documents, pictures, etc". (So apparantly it was going by what profile was currently logged in.)

Second, I tried deleting the Owner line completely.

Recreated the same two profiles.

Upon logging into testuser2 and manually browsing to testuser1..... they showed up as "My Documents, pictures, etc".

Am I attacking the wrong area? Is there a registry key I should be modifying?

[kingsc]

Also tried changing the Owner line to read "Owner="

This doesn't work either; manually browsing to a profile just shows "My Docs, pics, etc."

EDIT - And silly me, the reason I couldn't find the desktop.ini file earlier was because my folder options were configured to hide system files ;p

EDIT #2 - From research, I may end up having to try booting up SysPrep into factory mode, and then resealing.... I have a really bad feeling about doing this however. At least I have images on standby

Edited March 9, 2009 by kingsc

[kingsc]

testuser's Documents is in fact due to desktop.ini but its the one in the default users my docs.

C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\My Documents\desktop.ini (hidden)

------------------------------------

[DeleteOnCopy]

Owner=testuser

Personalized=5

PersonalizedName=My Documents

------------------------------------

delete the line thats marked as red. (or the whole file)

it can also sometimes show data from the allusers my docs as well

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\desktop.ini (hidden)

which in every case ive seen this is all that should be there:

------------------------------------

[.ShellClassInfo]

LocalizedResourceName=@shell32.dll,-21785

------------------------------------

This is a no-go. Described what happened earlier when just deleting the line.

Deleting the whole file made the problem worse. Now no matter what it says "My Docs, Pics, etc.", and the custom icons for the folders are gone.

[kingsc]

This is why I strongly recommend NOT copying whole profiles, and only the NTUSER.DAT file - which is the registry, which is going to hold HKCU, which is really all you need.

Will this keep all of the customization I've done to the "base" profile?

[cluberti]

This is why I strongly recommend NOT copying whole profiles, and only the NTUSER.DAT file - which is the registry, which is going to hold HKCU, which is really all you need.

Will this keep all of the customization I've done to the "base" profile?

What kind of customizing have you done? Since most settings are stored in the registry, the answer is likely yes.