Modify Default User profile files and or registry?
Is there a way to modify the Default User profile’s registry hive and or files and folders using Windows Installer?
To put this question into perspective, I work at a University and we often re-package applications that require either current user registry settings configured or files copied to the users Application Data folder. Our students are standard users and have a new profile created every time they log on to our computers, this means that we need to pre-populate the Default User profile with any settings, be they registry settings or configuration files.
We have in the past used the self healing mechanism with key registry values and files and also used the Active Setup method, but both of these are detrimental to the user experience especially as they are triggered every time the user either logs on or starts the application.
Currently we have been using scripting either outside the MSI file, such as using batch files, VBScripts etc. We have also started using VBScript Custom Actions in the MSI file but these can get some what complicated.
Is there any ‘native’ method of modifying the Default User profile using the Windows Installer technology?
As far as manually modifying a copy of ntuser.dat, I will leave it to your discretion to evaluate if that's something you really want to mess with. (My recommendation would be to not do so.)
