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Create a Duplicate User Profile with a Different Name
To create a duplicate of a user profile (with a different user name), use these steps:
- Create a new user account
- Logon to that account to initialize the newly created profile
- Log off from the newly created profile
- Login as Administrator (the built-in administrator account)
- Open Control Panel, double-click System
- Click the Advanced tab
- Click Settings under User Profiles
- Select a profile to copy from and choose Copy To
- Browse to the profile to copy to (C:\Documents and Settings\newuser)
- In Permitted to use, click Change
- In the Select User or Group dialog box, type the new user account name and press ENTER.
Though you can move or rename the user profile folder, there may be some side effects after using this method. This is because of the reason that there may be some absolute path references (to the old user profile folder) in the registry. For instance, the Outlook Express store folder would still be pointing to the old location. You may have to inspect the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive (in the new user account) to find and fix the folder paths accordingly.
Before modifying the registry, you need to take a full backup in case you want to undo the changes or if you want to recover from a disaster caused by incorrect registry modifications. You may use ERUNT for a full registry backup. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
