Microsoft® Windows® Desktop Deployment Resource Kit

Best Practices

The following are best practices for creating and deploying default user profiles:

• Avoid using default user profiles to customize settings, if possible. Default user profiles aren’t the most robust method for deploying user settings. If you have other technology available, such as AutoProf Profile Maker (http://www.autoprof.com), use it instead.

• Use the right type of user profile. Use roaming user profiles in environments in which users frequently use different computers, and those computers have similar hardware and software. Otherwise, use local user profiles and redirect their My Documents folders to the network.

• Customize default user profiles surgically, if possible. The brute-force method for deploying user profiles carries with ...