Windows 8 default profile

[alfatec]

Has anybody managed to sort out a default profile for Windows 8 where you can set the Metro UI, taskbar etc. In Windows 7 we used

a tool called Windows enabler which enabled us to copy any profile from Windows 7 and set it as the default profile. Can't seem to

get that to work on Windows 8.

[RabbieBurns]

Im trying to get this working too. Did you find a method?

 

The way we tried was to configure then copy the existing default profile. It works but it for some reason stops any metro app from launching.

[Bezwick]

Have you tried this

 

How to Customize the Default User Profile by Using CopyProfile

 

This is how we do it for windows 7 and it works.

[alfatec]

The only way you can do it with windows 8 is with an unattended file when you sysprep. The copy profile does not work like it used to in Windows 7. Once you have put your machine in audit mode and

have prepared the machine and start screen, when you sysprep it will copy the default profile from the local administrator account used when you go into audit mode. Metro screen works fine after that.

There are some scripts that you can configure to remove some of the default apps that sometimes show but we have got ours working fine. Let me know if you need any step by step guides.

[BHMS]

I have managed this using the alternative method from the Microsoft documentation here:

 

Copy the AppFolderLayout.Bin file to set default Start screen layout

 

How to Customize the Start Screen

 

Remember to enable to administrator account before syspreping into audit mode otherwise it will effectively brick your windows installation. I added the AppFolderLayout.bin to my Default User.v2 in netlogon and it works OK with some exceptions. It relies on links from the normal start menu ("all apps" in windows 8), these need to be named identically to your reference start screen in order to appear. This allows you to design a start screen that works with both 32 and 64bit installations without any file path issues and allows you to use start menu redirection. Applications need to be installed onto the machine, network shortcuts will not appear using this method but will be available on the "all apps" screen. I imagine this is due to lack of indexing for network locations.

[RabbieBurns]

Thanks, trying the alternative method but cannot seem to find an AppFolderLayout.Bin file ?

[BHMS]

The file does not appear until after you enable to administrator account and sysprep into audit mode.

 

It is located in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\

[RabbieBurns]

Ok, managed to find that file. But now Im having trouble mounting the .wim to add it back in to the captured image.

 

Using the command from the linked page: How to Mount and Modify an Image using

Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:C:\test\images\myimage.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\test\offline

is failing with error 267 unable to access image.

 

Any tips please?