- UA with Pre-Existing Apps & Profiles

[ccc]

This seems like such a useful and obvious thing to want to do…

And I was going to write a brief guide for it since nothing existed…

But everything I've tried has failed.

All XP & app setup, and XP & app configuration & tweaking work should be represented by the following:

1. Profiles folder (C:\Documents and Settings)

2. Apps folder (C:\Program Files)

3. HKEY_CURRENT_USER (or the file “NTUSER.DAT” within the user’s Profile folder)

4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software (or the file “software” within system32\config\)

5. There will be a few other files that some apps add to the boot partition, but just back those up to your build and add at some later UA point.

Goal is to have Profiles folder (C:\Documents and Settings) & Apps folder (C:\Program Files) on their own partition, and then – with backups of needed registry info – be able to do a fresh install to any other partition and have it use these Pre-Existing Apps & Profiles.

For example:

C – XP main install

D – Pagefile & other Temp junk

E – Apps & Profiles

F – XP test install

I've done a lot of searching and tried many different ways to do this, but not of lick of joy.

I’m using only the Administrator profile (as a single user for everything) and NOT trying to apply this to all users – which experts have warned about. Could add other profiles, like a default user with some basic tweaks, but I’m just trying to keep it as simple as possible for now.

I'll be bumping these old threads to try to get those experts to help here.

Duplicated User Accounts: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=ST...=70&t=36332

NTUSER.DAT: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?act=ST...=70&t=16257

Has anyone been able to do this?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Edited November 20, 2006 by ccc

[ccc]

I realize the great interest in the UA add-on packs that install applications along with installation, and I've been doing this as well.

But what I’m suggesting – if possible – is to place a complete clone of all apps, profiles, and settings on any PC and allow that to be used with a fresh install.

Just need to be able to apply the components above along with the install.

Edited November 20, 2006 by ccc