VM-based Windows 7 mandatory profile method... thoughts?

[gshaw]

Setting up mandatory profiles on our 7 test machines is proving to be "fun" as anyone who's experienced so far will testify

Although I've seen alternative methods initially I want to stick with the supported way, although even following the Microsoft guide I've changed the method slightly...

1. Set up a VMware Gold image with all our software installed
2. Snapshot the image before doing any customisations (or clone might be safer actually)
3. Use one of the cloned images to capture the Gold image to SCCM, use the other for mandatory profile creation
4. Make all profile changes as required
5. Snapshot machine before starting Sysprep
6. Run Sysprep with Copyprofile XML blah blah
7. Once done, login as a local admin user and use the Copy To button on default profile
8. Copy to C: drive (as copying to the network seems to be a right PITA when the source machine isn't on the domain)
9. Take profile from C: of reference machine, place on network share. Check security to ensure it's inherited permissions from the profile share... if not replace security and owner with inherited settings
10. Set profile location in AD and test
11. When done revert the snapshot of the profile creation VM so we can make further customisations and run Sysprep again as and when required

There doesn't seem to be much reference online to doing it this way (saw one article using the same snapshot idea above) so I'm at the stage of wondering if it's a clever solution or a stupid one