Due to problems with our work network my profile sometimes gets reset to default (hyper-annoying) windows settings…
stupid sound for all clicks
xp style switched off.
start bar at default
language bar on
IE command bar on
IE in tabbed mode
Outlook asking me every time I want to delete something
outlook not being set up.
Outlook missing my extra mailboxes.
the list. goes. on.
I spend roughly an hour putting everything back the way it SHOULD be.
Then I hit on the idea of exporting the registry to a file, so that if this happens again I can import it.
If you export just those settings, then things should be ok if re-import them later. (and I say this not having looked closely at the settings and if they are single settings or not, etc.)
But if you export your entire registry, then when you import it, you will almost certainly overwrite settings you don’t want to change. Programs that have been installed since you exported, other program settings that may have changed (last files accessed, folder names, etc.), might be gone entirely or back to what they were.
This would be very similar to using a restore point to reset Windows back to an earlier date. Resetting the registry is only part of what happens in that process, but I think it’s big part.
Does your profile get reset, or does it get backed up and a new one created? Sometimes you can rename your old user folder in C:\Documents and Settings\ and get some settings back.
Most of what you ask, but probably not everything, is stored in the registry. There’s an easy test: go to another machine that does not have your profile stored on it and log in there and see what’s different.
The difficult bit is differentiating between what you’ve set for yourself and what you’ve set for the machine - if you don’t have local admin rights you can generally disregard the latter.
All your settings will be somewhere in HKeyCurrentUser. Don’t save the whole lot, just the keys you want. You’ll end up with a whole load of .reg files, which you can save somewhere safe. Then, when your profile next gets reset, just right-click each and select Import. Or you could create a batch file to do it for you. You could merge all the files - they’re only text files - but keeping them separate makes making changes easier…
There is a much easier way to transfer most of these settings: The Windows Files and Settings Transfer Wizard on XP (or Windows Easy Transfer on Vista). It takes care of most of that for you.
if you look at the “Documents and Settings” folder, you may see folders named <OP Username>.000, <OP Username>.001 etc.
What happens is that if the network times out during profile loading, the local machine gives up, builds a new profile directory based on the default, and sets the local user profile mapping to the new directory. Then when you log out, this new profile gets copied back to the roaming profile server :smack:.
You can do some tricks with these directories, but you can only do so while you yourself are not logged on, and you need local administrator rights to access these folders from a different account. The easiest thing to try is to copy the contents of a known good profile (particularly NTUser.DAT) into the last working profile, as this is the one that Windows should try to use next logon. However, you need to delete your roaming profile off the server first, otherwise it will overwrite the older one you have just restored.
Or, you could get someone to copy the older NTUser.DAT into your roaming profile (again, while not logged on).
The real solution is for the IT dept to improve the network so that this does not happen, or at least increase the profile load timeout via (ISTR) a policy setting.
The reg trick suggested above is OK (if slow and a bit risky), but some things just will not work - the Outlook settings stored in the registry Outlook profile are arcane, not understandable and not amenable to that sort of reg capture - believe me, I’ve tried.