Capturing User Profile when saving an image (sysprep)

Question

I have successfully captured an image using sysprep and can provision new machines from it, however all the custom user settings are missing (desktop shortcuts, chrome bookmarks etc...).

A more serious issue is that one of the applications I had installed fails on the provisioned machine unless run as administrator (due to the way it writes some files when being installed originally).

How can I ensure this profile information is preserved and I don't hit the permissions issue for the application?

I have been pointed at the following link (http://theitbros.com/sysprep-xp-sp3-copy-administrator-profile/) but it seems to be Win XP specific.

Answer 1

The answer here wasn't very elegant (in my mind at least) but here is what I did to achieve the desired result:

1. Create the VM as usual (specifying the admin user during setup)
2. Create a new (non-admin) user and give them RDP access
3. Log in as the non-admin user
4. Install all the necessary software
5. Log in as the admin user, change the permissions for any files that were causing an issue to be readable by the non-admin user
6. Run sysprep as the admin and complete the process as detailed elsewhere

This gave me an image that I was able to provision VMs from. When creating the VM I specified the admin user to be created (but then never needed to login as the admin, as I would just login as my non-admin user that was created before). All profile settings for the non-admin user are preserved.

Hope this helps anyone else facing the same issue.

Answer 2

Profile information can be migrated to a new deployment using the User State Migration Tool (USMT). USMT is a free tool designed to help IT Professionals migrate files and settings to Windows 7 or Windows 8. USMT captures user accounts, user files, operating system settings, and applications settings and then migrates them to the new Windows installation. The TechNet articles ‘Step-by-Step: Basic Windows Migration using USMT for IT Professionals’ and ‘User State Migration Tool 4.0 User’s Guide’ are good places to start learning how to use USMT.

For your application issue, I would recommend using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) for your deployments. MDT can deploy your image and then install device drivers and applications to the machine automatically. These two video walkthroughs are specific to migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 with MDT, and using USMT to migrate the user files and settings:

Part 1: Building the Deployment Environment

Part 2: Initiating the Install and Migrating the PC

There is also a Microsoft Virtual Academy 7 part course titled ‘Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7’ that has two parts dedicated to using USMT to transfer user data and one part for MDT.

MDT can be downloaded here, and USMT is a part of the ADK which is a component of MDT.

Hope this helps,