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I installed Windows 8.1 on completely formatted HDD. I spent about 1 hour to tune is the way I like it. Now, I want that all new user accounts I create on this laptop will be derived from the user account I already tuned with respect to the settings, including window size, personalization themes, programs settings, start screen etc.

Is it possible to export settings of one user account and import them to another account on Windows 8.1? Or just to make all new user accounts to derive from already tuned account?

Mike
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1 Answers1

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Exporting settings from one account and importing it in to another via copying over the default profile folder is no longer supported and newer OSes now block this by having the System applet in Control Panel gray out the option to overwrite the Default User profile.

The currently supported default profile setup system would require you to use sysprep and a answer file to do it. This process is described at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825135.aspx.

There is a workaround posted over at cannot copy user profiles that you may get to work, but its quite manual, has security permissions problems mentioned in the same article, and seems otherwise prone to error. I'll reproduce the instructions here for completeness:

Customize a user profile as needed
Go to Control Panel and create a new dummy admininstrator
Reboot, log in as the dummy admin
Browse to C: and go into the Folder settings and Show all hidden/system files
Browse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the Default folder to make a second (backup) copy of it
Browse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the customized user profile to make a second copy of it
SHIFT-DEL the original Default folder
Rename the customized folder copy to Default
Create a new dummy admin and reboot/log in to test it
ThatOneDude
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