Windows 7 - Profile Question.

[KSoD]

Yes every situation is unique. But simply put, the solution you are working with is one that you are carrying over for almost a decade now. You used it with XP, you tried and failed to get it working properly with Vista and now here you are again trying to use it with Win7. You say you will upgrade when necessary yet here you are trying to do the same old things. Kinda a contradiction in saying every situation is unique but at the same time expect the solution to work the same no matter the OS in use.

Unique situation but trying to use the same solution. The same one that you used on XP and the reason why you didnt go with Vista. Cause you couldnt use the same solution.

I can say that i do hope that it all goes well for you with the testing of Win7 and this solution you use. But in all fairness, with Win8 already starting development and the possible drop of 32 Bit support (Finally!) from Microsoft who knows where it will be in 2-3 years.

I wish you the best. Right now with Win7 still not released to the public your sources for those using the Final Build are few and far between. I can answer with the best of my ability to try and help. But i cant answer everything thrown at me when it comes to the profiles. I dont know every aspect of them.

 

[Jayce]

The thing is Mak, Microsoft claims that local default profiles are supported in XP, Vista, and 7. I know this because, well, I called them and talked to them about it.

They work in XP.
I have them working in 7.

What the **** happened to Vista? Nobody seems to know or be able to answer why I had the issues I did. However when you have very few people to ask in the business environment, it becomes that much more difficult to do that.

But let me reiterate - I am not the network administrator. I cannot make the call on roaming profiles or default profiles. Simply and bluntly put - local default profiles work. They just work. Our setup is perfectly fine and I see no reason to go towards roaming profiles, especially with the mixed reviews. But personal opinion aside, there's not a thing I can do regardless.

The most confusing part for me is, why did I have the huge headache I did with Vista where it ultimately never worked in the first place, and why was it so easy in 7? I thought Vista and 7 were supposed to be pretty similar. I just felt like, despite it appearing to work in my instance, I felt like I did it wrong cause I just expected to be bombarded with corrupt profile errors - Vista style. It seemed... "too easy."

 

[KSoD]

Vista and 7 are similar, but they are just as much different as they are similar. Yes they used the code of Vista to make Win7, in the beginning. But that is where it stops. They optimized the code, they fixed nagging issues from vista and made many adjustments to 7 that are and wont be present in Vista.

Every one gets caught up on the fact that Win7 uses the Vista code, that was to start with. It is not the Vista code anymore. That is there it ended was back with Build 7000. Now it is Win7's code and it is much different than Vista. If it was still the same, Win7 would have the same issues as Vista and we would be having a totally different conversation about Win7 than we are.

Win7 looks like Vista, it acts likes vista to a point but that is it. Everything has been refined to work better. Resources usage is down and so on. Like i have said in the Win7 thread, it is the best of both worlds. It is the look of Vista with the operation of XP. which it pretty much is. Which is the only reason why i can say that it works now when it didnt before.

Glad that it is working for you though. Win7 is a much better OS overall than XP and it will offer the students much more.

 

[Jayce]

Glad that it is working for you though. Win7 is a much better OS overall than XP and it will offer the students much more.

This may be a tough pill to swallow with me being a hardcore Linux guy, but uh... Windows 7 is pretty solid. Don't get me wrong, it'll never be my main OS but it surely will be nice having it at work.

I do admit, it was kind of a bummer... to get all of those new computers in and bam - we drop them back to XP. Granted XP worked so it was fine, but, in the back of my head I just felt like there was more we could do. But when you have 1,000 computers thrown at your feet and there's 3 of you to set up, wire, image, prep, and finalize each and every last system to be 100% ready within a 4 week period, you have to cut some corners.

I think 7 will be a fantastic addition to the district. It's just... we gotta do this right. There's a lot of time I'm going to spend making sure I understand 7 so I can prep the images accordingly. I tested it about 2 hours ago with Ubuntu/FOG (the imaging system I use) and it worked like a charm. In fact, it was less painful than Vista since I didn't have to make any boot loader adjustments prior to uploading (Vista's would get corrupt for some reason).

 

[Jayce]

WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Hi. I'm back. And yes, I'm still trying to figure out this problem, because if I don't, 7 has no hope.

SO... a computer/network engineer came to the district to help us out today with moving forward on a few projects. He helped me... for 3... hours... to try and figure out these **** default profiles in Windows 7. Mind you, some people may think I'm beating a dead horse here, but this is absolutely required to work for us to use Windows 7, as it would be for any school district who has a crap-ton of users who use many different computers that require the exact same configuration. So, please, roaming profiles. No. It's one thing for a business with a handful of users, but impossible with our situation.

So anyway, after 3 agonizing hours, we got it. We opened permissions up wide to the default profile and set the owner to the default profile to be "everyone", and also added all users to the "administrators" group.

I have 2 computers on my desk. Both running the same copy of Windows 7 RC. We got it working with one. I documented step by step what we did. Then, he left. Awesome. I was really happy. Everything was working.

I decided to try and duplicate what he did on the second computer. I was really confident all would be well since I had exact step by step directions.

Well, it pulled the desktop icons, and the home page to FF and IE, but that was it. No background icons and it was also missing some other stuff. So at this point, I'm borderline suicidal, because I'm absolutely frustrated that it didn't work. So, naturally, I decided to compare permissions.

I checked... every... single... possible... window... on the properties option with the default profile on EACH windows 7 computer (1 that was already working, 1 that was not).

They're identical. Absolutely identical. And yet, one works, one doesn't.

So, okay fine. Walk away from it for a few hours, fast forward to an evening out with some buds, my mind is clear... and I come home... hmm... that spare computer isn't doing any good sitting there idle in the corner, let's throw 7 on it. So I did. Once again, I followed the steps we documented from earlier.

Same deal. No dice. Mixture of success/failure with 7 pulling the default profile properly.

Does anybody, anybody at all, have any idea how we can possibly set the default profile in Windows 7? We have it working on 1 computer, so I know it's possible. Windows has the default profile created by default after a fresh install, so clearly the option is there to change it. It's just so frustrating to have so much inconsistency with windows permissions. I don't understand how we can open the permissions wide and yet one pc does one thing and another pc does another.

I just need some ideas to work with in terms of why this isn't working... Any ideas on what I can check?

******, chmod, save me...

 

[Jayce]

I need a Windows permissions guru here.

I'm pulling the profile. I pull firefox/IE settings, desktop icons, etc. I do NOT pull printers or desktop icons.

What do I need to do to make the default profile WIDE open. I want this thing with absolutely zero restrictions whatsoever. I want to try this and see if I can get the profile system working. If I can get it working, I'll begin to start restricting the folder's permissions enough to get an idea of what level of permissions are needed so the profile can be 100% pulled without forgetting bits and pieces like it is. I already applied "everyone" as the effective owner and they have full control. I'm not sure if I'm forgetting a step or another switch or what, but I need this **** thing to work.

So - how do I open this ***** up?

 

[KSoD]

What files are you copying? Do you have all files showing including the system protected files? Are you copying even the 3 files listed in here that it says not to?

 

[Jayce]

I wonder if that's it, because when I went to copy the profile, the only folder inside besides the "regular stuff" (downloads, documents, pictures, music) was AppData. I didn't see NTUser or the other 2 listed there. I thought maybe with windows 7 being different perhaps it had re-arranged the way it handled the profiles.

It's too **** late for me to try it now, but I'll install 7 again on my spare rig and try that. Somehow I have a good feeling about that. Thanks for the heads up Mak. If this works I'll be sooooooooooooooooooo fricken happy.....

EDIT - So, I got a little too anxious and had to try it.

Mak - when I copy the profile to default, I'm not copying the contents of the folder, cause then windows 7 yells at me about how its corrupt or some BS. What I do is I rename default to default.old, and then copy the administrator profile and paste it, then rename it to Default and hide that folder (but nothing inside) and open the permissions wide on it.

So, Windows 7 likes the default default profile, but not my default profile.

Also, Mak, I didn't realize that by doing that, I WAS taking those NTUser system files that your link talked about. In short, it's not a step forward.

GAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why Windows, why?

 

[KSoD]

Well not taking those files will give you a default profile. Meaning stock background and everything. Now try this. Right click on the ORIGINAL Default Folder. Click Properties. Select Security. Click Advanced. Click on the name Everyone. Click Change permissions. Another screen will pop up. There click on Everyone again and click Edit. Click the check box for Full Control.

See if using that permission set helps resolve the issue without creating a new Default folder that Windows doesnt like.

 

[Jayce]

Okay... I have it set to show hidden files and do not hide system files so I can see everything.

"Default" is owned by "Everyone" and has full control.

Yet when I paste the contents of Administrator into "Default", the only thing that transfers is AppData. Nothing else. When I back out so I'm viewing all "Users" profiles, and right click Default - Properties, it says 0 bytes.

djfklsjd