Windows 7 Default User Profiles

Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that default user profiles can only be altered as part of a sysprep process. In the past (Vista and earlier) from within computer properties you could simply copy a profile configured as desired to become the default profile. With Windows 7 this can only be done through the use of Sysprep. In order to perform this successfully the following needs to be performed.

1. Create a user profile and configure the profile as desired
2. Grant this user account admin permissions so that sysprep can be performed.
3. Clear the contents of the c:\windows\panther and c:\windows\system32\sysprep\panther folder
4. Copy a sysprep.xml file with the copy profile option set to c:\windows\system32\sysprep. A sample of which is shown in the image below

5. While logged on as the user with the profile to be copied, execute
   sysprep /generalize /unattend:c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.xml

Sysprep will then run and copy the current user profile as the default user profile.