title: Customized Windows 10 Backup not porting well
body: <p>So basically I customized a Windows 10 install. I have the PerfLogs, Program Data, Temp and Users folders in C:\ replaced as symlinks to their actual location to D:\</p>
  
  <p>The purpose being, I will only keep a image backup of C:\ and when the need arises that I need a fresh install of the OS, I will only overwrite the whole C: drive with the backup and don't even have to touch my old user profiles. It works without a glitch even as I moved my C: to an SSD.</p>
  
  <p>I did it with a few simple tricks (I don't exactly remember everything I did, but once I got the build right, I just left it as it is as I thought I would never have to touch it again):</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>I remembered following tips and other guides like this:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://commaster.net/content/windows-installation-tips-moving-user-folder-another-drive" rel="nofollow">https://commaster.net/content/windows-installation-tips-moving-user-folder-another-drive</a></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>the difference being I used symlinks instead of junctions with mklink command.</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><p>Some modification with registry and other files.</p></li>
  <li>Several stages of booting until everything has been transferred and having windows re-create the profiles and configurations.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Anyways, I had to fix my Mom's PC, which was in a state of disarray as she thought she had to save all her files in C:\ and NEVER in Documents. I opted to install my customized Windows install, so if I need to fix it again, it would just be a cinch.</p>
  
  <p>Before building this custom Windows install, I've made backups of my system with my usual backup tool, Paragon Partition Manager. They worked fine and when I had to change PC builds, such as changing my motherboard, all I had to do was change the drivers. So I thought with my custom Windows 10 install, that's all I had to do for my Mom's PC.</p>
  
  <p>But I kept running into problems with Window's User Profile Service.
  At first, it was having difficulty loading the Administrator account and seems to be defaulting to C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile, as it cannot seem to write to it's D:\Users\Administrator folder. I quickly fixed that, but, still, it can't load the Start Menu and other services. </p>
  
  <p>The only one that was working <em>almost</em> completely was the user (just one - me) that was existing when I created the backup AND only works with a copy of the corresponding folder in D:\Users\<em>MyUsername</em>.</p>
  
  <p>Obviously I wanted to create a user just for my Mom and one that is <em>completely</em> working and I don't wanna leave a copy of D:\Users\<em>MyUsername</em> in her PC. I figured all I had to do was create a user profile in Control Panel and Windows will recreate everything and all the configurations. The add user service in Control Panel wasn't working with Administrator, but only with <em>MyUsername</em>. But whenever I try to sign in to the newly created user, the "User Profile Service failed  to sign-in" keeps popping up. I can sign into it in safe mode, at the first seemingly recreating everything with the first-time-sign-in-welcome-screen, but a lot of the services are not working. So creating another user profile with this new profile doesn't work. </p>
  
  <p>More notably, I've tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>net user username /add
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and adding through advanced user profiles:</p>
  
  <pre><code>control userpasswords2
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But the new registry keys for the new users in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList never gets created -- even after I go safe mode and manage to sign in to the new users.</p>
  
  <p>I've also considered it might be a user permission issue, somehow being carried over from my PC build (if that makes sense, it still doesn't to me). Anyways, so with the newly created user logged in with safe mode, I tried changing permission for C: and D: for every single group to "Full Control". Then from that newly created user, create another user either through <code>net user username /add</code> or <code>control userpasswords2</code>. I even tried booting to Linux LiveCD and chmod-ding everything to 777 (I'm not even sure how that transfer to an NTFS. Then I try to sign in and even if I can forcibly sign in, it just isn't a glitch-free user profile.</p>