Customize Default User Profile for New Accounts in Windows 10  

Hi Kari.

Following on from my earlier question:

Tolqua:
I noticed that Windows 10 has installed the System Reserved partition on my second (Aux) drive which is a 500GB spinner. I didn't choose this and the OS itself has been correctly installed the 'primary' SSD drive which I did specify. I was going to reinstall, but thought that perhaps there's a good reason for this since both drives were unformatted empty space. Is this the best configuration?

Kari:
System reserved partitions are as the name says a system partition. There's no reason to be worried about them, nor should they be removed. Thay are so small they do not affect your storage capacity.

Tolqua:
My comment about the System Reserved partition was not that there's any problem with it - like you say it's very small. I just wondered why Windows chose to put this on the second drive which is a 500GB spinner when the rest of the OS is on the first drive, a 256GB SSD, which is the location I specified during install. Is this normal? Is Windows doing this for a good reason? Maybe the SR partition doesn't need to be on the primary partition and Windows has put it on the HDD to conserve space on the primary partition? ...or maybe it's function is better served in a location that's physically separate from the primary? Just curious to know, really.

Kari:
I have pretty much given up to understand the placement of System reserved, and various recovery partitions created in UEFI systems. My policy: Windows knows what it is doing.

Tolqua:
You may well be right about that, but not being sure or knowing why is a bit of a leap of faith. As I said, it's likely there's a good reason Windows has put the System Reserved partition on my second drive, but I've not seen it do this before and it seems both illogical and contrary to what I understand is common good practice. For example, what happens when it comes to doing an image backup of the system - I'd normally include all OS partitions in a backup and since the image is best saved to a physically separate drive, I'd have to exclude the SR partition because it's already located on the target drive.

I'd like to take your advice and leave it alone, but as you can see, it's not that simple. Do you think it would be worth posting a new topic about this on TenFoums?

In the meantime I'll see if I can get some input from Macrium on this.

I'm glad I looked into this further. Here's the conversation with Macrium:

...okay, well I tried to include the conversation with Macrium (redacting as necessary), but after 30 minutes of trying I can't seem to find a way to do this that includes the in-line screen shots and preserves some degree of formatting/control. Any ideas for doing this?

The bottom line is that I was right that the SR partition should be on the same physical drive as the rest of the OS if only from a backup point of view of taking a backup image.

Even though I'd specified the SSD as the install location in the Windows installation wizard, the fact that the HDD was connected and selected by default in a 'secondary' boot sequence menu in the BIOS of this mobo meant that the SR partition got installed there. Macrium's suggestion was to disconnect the HDD during install, although once I'd found this setting and changed it, I did get the installation with bot partitions on the SSD without having to disconnect the HDD.

Windows may know what it's doing, but it's not doing a very good job here. Just as well I bothered to look in Disk Management.

Tolqua.

I use several cloud-based storage services (currently Dropbox, OneDrive Personal, OneDrive Business and Google Drive) and would like to include one or more of these in my customisation if possible.

I know that OneDrive personal is part of Windows, but I don't think the new sync client (NGSC) is included yet, so this upgrade would have to be done at this stage if I wanted include in my customisation.

Is it possible to install these clients under the Administrator account in Audit Mode?

Tolqua.

Hi

Can I create the answer file on my normal PC and then use the answer file on my tablet, where I create the customized image with Sysprep and DISM? Or do I have to install Windows ADK on my tablet?



Best regards,
creative

Hi Kari

Thanks for your response.

But I have one more question about that. At the very end of the part in your tutorial you check the answer file. On the last line there is the location of the .wim file. When I want to use this answer file with another pc and Windows installation do I have to edit this path?

This is what I actually do with my devices:
I boot the tablet in Audit Mode and make some changes. After this I use Sysprep. Then I boot from our Recovery Stick we got from the manufacturer and capture the Image with DISM. At the very end of that I copy the new .swm files to my USB device and boot other devices with the new captured Image.

(All settings and programs will be saved but I need also to capture the user settings e.g. Desktop, Startmenue, etc.)



Best regards,
creative

Already said thanks on other post but this one goes more in detail about subject so have to give credit were credit is due!! Thank you once again Kari!!

Hi Kari
I am in the process of doing your customization with Win 10 Enterprise build 1607. After sysprep OOB the pc just keeps rebooting. I'm a little confused as to what I have to a answer file. At one point in your post, it changes. Below is my answer file that I copied from your post. I put my answer file on a thumb drive.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<settings pass="specialize">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
</component>
</settings>
<cpi : fflineImage cpi:source="wim:X:/sources/install.wim#Windows 10 Pro" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

Thank you. I put the unattend.xml in the sysprep folder on the C drive, ran the sysprep command. The pc is still in a reboot cycle after the settings page. I don't have a .wim file, do I need one?