Windows Vista: Copying from an Admin profile to a standard user

Question

I'm wondering if you could copy all the settings of an Admin-enabled profile to a standard user account? If not, is there an application that can help you achieve this?

I didn't know I've been running under Admin account all this time...

Answer 1

I know this works for XP and I believe Vista.

Log on as an user with Administrator permission.

1. Control Panel\System.
2. Click on Advanced System Settings.
3. Click Settings button under the User Profiles section.
4. Click the profile you want to copy.
5. Click Copy to and type in or browse for the profile you want to overwrite. Check this twice!
6. Click the Permitted to use button and add all user accounts that you want to give full control of the profile to.
7. Click Ok.

Once copied, test the profile by logging on as the user the profile was copied to

Answer 2

You can use Easy Transfer to copy account settings, it's built into Windows 7

Windows Easy Transfer

In Windows 7, Windows Easy Transfer lives up to its name. Redesigned to be more reliable and helpful, it takes the hassle out of migrating important files, e-mail, pictures, and settings from your old PC to your new one.

You've told us previous versions were hard to figure out or stalled before the job was done. So Windows Easy Transfer now includes a new file explorer so you can easily choose exactly which files to copy to your new PC. And if Windows finds a file or setting it can't work with, your transfer won't hang up—it will finish and give you a full report of anything that didn't migrate.

If your old PC isn't running Windows 7, you'll need to install the appropriate version of Windows Easy Transfer.