Thanks to everyone for all of your replies. I have stumbled across a much easier way to create a mandatory profile than to mess around with sysprep and answer files! I used the following method as shown here:
http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/63246-default-user-custom-profile-windows-7-without-sysprep.html
1. create and configure your model profile. For example lets say the name of the model profile is “modelprofile”
2. log off model profile, login the local administrator account.
3. launch regedit, navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList]
4. Note that the value data DEFAULT (reg_expand_sz) is….. %SystemDrive%\Users\Default
5. right-click and Modify the string and change the path to ….%SystemDrive%\Users\modelprofile
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NOW COPY THE PROFILE
6. Right click “Computer”, click properties
7. Click Advanced System Settings
8. Under User Profiles, click on Settings…
9. Choose (click) on “Default Profile”
10. Click on “Copy To…”
11. Browse to or enter the path to the default user profile “C:\Users\Default”
12. Under “permitted to use” click on “change” type the object name “everyone”
13. Click OK, then OK again.
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AFTER PROFILE COPIES SUCCESSFULLY THEN REVERT REGISTRY TO DEFAULT BY REPEATING STEPS 1-4.
14. Revert the original value data for the DEFAULT (reg_expand_sz) string path back to…. %SystemDrive%\Users\Default