Topic awaiting preservation: Saving/Loading a Windows XP profile

So the situation goes like this: At my school they've recently upgraded all the computers to Windows XP. We have some of the oldest, most shit-slow computers in my department. Also they've installed a system called Deep Freeze that captures and elimates all changes to the hard drive every time a user reboots/logs off/shuts down. We have managed to set up user profiles that maximise performance whilst eliminating the most annoying of XP's elements. However, thanks to Deep Freeze, we have to recreate these profiles every time we log on, and that takes time. What I'm interested to know is... is there a way to save a profile to, say, my personal network drive, just things like all the desktop settings, visual elements and so on, and load it up again once I log back on?


Justice 4 Pat Richard

(Edited by Skaarjj on 02-09-2005 13:15)

Deep Freeze is a very promising name for a system tool.
SCNR

^ROTFL

You might want to look at the 'services'....and see if you can make a change in there.... and the only place I've found that gives a detailed explanation of each ... and what may be safely turned off... depending on 'dependencies'... is blackviper.com. The key to changing 'services' so they don't revert as he explains is starting from 'run' ... worth a peek for sure.

I'm not looking for what I can turn off (becuase I'm not touching the services anyway), I'm looking for a way to say the profile of individual settings that are in every user's profile (including things like the visual styles you use, the start menu type, desktop arrangement, background, etc) to an extranal file or directory (like, say, a permanent network drive that each user has) so that every time I log in I can load up this profile and be back to what I had without having to spend 15 minutes going through and doing it all again. I'm not looking to circumvent the security measures that are in place there and disable services and so on permanently, mainly becuase I'm not looking to get myself kicked out of the school. All I'm looking for is a way to take my settings with me in the form of a file I could save to my network drive or USB Flash drive and load thme into whatever computer i'm using. Becuase at the very least these computers default to 640x480 every time you log off, with that horrible greeny-blue windows default background colour. It's horrible. Really. There has to be a way to do this, and I am trying to find it, becuase there are a number of other people highly interested in the answer.

[Edit: I think I may have found the three files I have to copy... the trick will be getting to them becuase at least 1 of them you can't copy while you're logged in...]


Justice 4 Pat Richard

(Edited by Skaarjj on 02-09-2005 19:44)

http://www.winntmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/41654/41654.html

Your question made me curious. This article was a good read , I havent figured out the solution yet but it's GOT to be hiding in this article somewhere...

It's a catch 22 as the profile you want to save is being used and wont be saved for access until you log out from what im reading.(if deep freeze even allows it locally, we can assume deep freeze wont let you write updates to the mandatory profile right?). Somehow the cached version of the local profile has to be copied or the. Im a hopeless optomist

If you glean the answer from something please post your solution.

shekk

Try right clicking on the desktop, going to theme, and then saving it, after you get everything set up.
I'm pretty sure this saves all the stuff you are refering to...

Of course, I doubt this will work as I am sure you already thought of this...

----| Asylum Quotes

Surprisingly enough... no, I didn't. I'll give it a try today when I go in.


Justice 4 Pat Richard