Configuring default settings for Windows image deployment - Update for Windows XP SP3

In my previous post on this topic, I mentioned that Windows XP Service Pack 2 will copy the Administrators settings to Default User (see sections B & C).  The new profile copy is the default behavior in SP2 with no built-in way to disable it.  To disable it you had to request the hotfix from KB887816 from Microsoft Customer Support.

This has changed with Windows XP Service Pack 3.  The fix from KB887816 is included in SP3.  (See KB946480 for a list of fixes included in SP3.)  Therefore, the behavior for SP3 is no profile copy by default.  To enable the profile copy, you now have to add UpdateServerProfileDirectory=1 to the [Unattended] section of Sysprep.inf before running Sysprep.  Unfortunately, due to an oversight you will not find this documented in the Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Reference (ref.chm) included with the SP3 Deployment Tools.  KB887816 is currently one of the only references for this setting, as far as I know.  (KB908784 also references this setting with respect to a problem that the profile copy can cause on Windows Server 2003)

8/3/2008 Update

In this post I orginally provided some instrutions about slipstreaming SP 3 into an installation source with the Tablet PC Edition CMPNENTS folder in it.  Well it turns out that slipstreaming SP3 into the CMPNENTS will not be supported.  See my August 3rd post for details.

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This post was contributed by Michael Murgolo, a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Services - U.S. East Region.