You did WHAT to the fresh Windows installation???? Losing my mind here, am I overreacting?

[Octopuss]

I spent 3 days cleaning and installing (refreshing my tweaked unattended image and exploring Windows 11 took most of the time, FYI) a used notebook for someone within the close family circle, and within an hour of getting their hands on the bloody thing I was confronted with a "complaint" about not being able to transfer settings. I got red light panic attack and to my horror, they really did copy user profile from a completely different machine to this cleanly installed notebook. Most likely same username, so shit was overwritten as a bonus.
I was like WHYTHESHITDIDYOUDOTHATI'VEJUSTINSTALLEDTHISOMFG!!!, and they were like "He? I've been doing it for ten years and it always worked".

The people who know a little bit more about computers than my mother and start digging into stuff are probably the worst kind. Never once in my life did I think anyone would even consider doing this, because WHYYYY???

But then, am I maybe overreacting?
All the stuff I know about Windows tells me this must instantly mess everything up and the profile wouldn't even start, let alone work without problems. The registry is one horrible black hole and it loves to corrupt itself even on one machine. And yet - they say they've been doing this for years. That makes no sense. There is a reason why less clueless people do clean installation of Windows and why migration tools exist.

Just WTF?

 

[Mysteoa]

Well, I'm not sure what to tell you, but I have been doing the same thing for maybe around 15+years. I have not experienced of any issues major issues

Basically, What I would do is just copy everything from my old user to the new installation, replacing everything that it can. This way, all my program setting will stay the same as like I never reinstated windows. The most I would have would be some broken links that can be easily fixed. The registry doesn't change, as it's not contained in the user folder.

 

[Octopuss]

What about NTUSER.DAT in user profile?

 

[Gasaraki]

I would never copy the whole user's folder in Users. I just copy the documents, desktop, videos, etc. The individual users folders in Users contain more stuff than user files. You can't just copy the whole folder over. Besides, there's a lot of junk you don't want to copy over anyway.

 

[windwhirl]

I sort of do something like this but I'm picky about what I'm transferring.

Usually, just some folders in AppData, not all of them.

And that's about it because my documents and all that are on Onedrive, so I just change the target folder for Documents, Desktop and such.

 

[Octopuss]

Yeah. And when you do it while the profile is loaded, it gets even worse, because some of the files are locked.

Actually thinking about it, it was probably not possible to copy NTUSER.DAT over, so from registry point of view it wasn't as much of a disaster as I initially though. At least I hope the person had no idea they could log to different profile and overwrite everything.

 

[windwhirl]

What about NTUSER.DAT in user profile?

If you want to fuck around with that file, better off to get your hands dirty with User State Migration Tool. And it sucks ass, last I heard.

 

[Octopuss]

If you want to fuck around with that file, better off to get your hands dirty with User State Migration Tool. And it sucks ass, last I heard.

I know. I was just trying to point out it was part of the registry, so overwriting it is most likely to cause a lot of problems.

 

[Dorek]

I have to admit i always do that if i have to reinstall but i never overwrite any data.

 

[AusWolf]

Copying files (as in, documents, pictures, etc.) over, sure. But settings? Why?

 

[Sithaer]

I've always copied Document&Settings too whenever I do a reinstall and so far it gave me no issues whatsoever.
Rest is fresh tho as far as I can tell. 'I did save out the entire users folder but I did not copy it back as a whole'

 

[biffzinker]

All I do is symbolic links to a second drive for Document, Videos, Music, Photos etc and leave the rest on the boot drive. Sure I don't like having to redo settings in Apps I prefer but I would rather have a clean start from the previous profile.

 

[GrimReaper85]

I don't care for Users folder since forever. I have all the important files stored on other drives than system C drive.
If I were to reinstall Windows I would just have to backup what is on the desktop. I have mainly shortcuts, but some are actual files.

 

[Shihab]

What about NTUSER.DAT in user profile?

Does the normal copy dialogue overwrite files with system/hidden attributes? Does it even add them to the queue if the option to show them wasn't enabled for explorer?

I get what your relative is doing. I used to do something similar a long time ago; copy most of the directories in my profile home, especially appdata, documents and game saves ones. Not the whole profile at once tho, but considering your typical ctrl+c ctrl+v should only move those subdirs, no significant damage should be caused.

Fastest way to migrate application settings. Pretty stupid way to migrate OS ones tho.

 

[AusWolf]

I don't care for Users folder since forever. I have all the important files stored on other drives than system C drive.
If I were to reinstall Windows I would just have to backup what is on the desktop. I have mainly shortcuts, but some are actual files.

That's the best thing to do, imo. That way, a corrupted OS won't mess with your files, and you can do a reinstall without going lengths into trying to recover your files first.

Does the normal copy dialogue overwrite files with system/hidden attributes? Does it even add them to the queue if the option to show them wasn't enabled for explorer?

No. You only copy what's been selected. If hidden files aren't shown, they won't get selected, and thus, won't get copied.

 

[DaemonForce]

Yeah. And when you do it while the profile is loaded, it gets even worse, because some of the files are locked.

This is very possible from WinPE. Easy to copy an old admin profile to another drive in this environment.
Also easy to take an admin/user backup and slump it into the users directory of the target system.

All I do is symbolic links to a second drive for Document, Videos, Music, Photos etc and leave the rest on the boot drive.

At that point why not roam?

 

[Epaminombas]

It is more practical and faster to move files manually folder by folder, this takes about 10 minutes to identify.

Microsoft @outlook accounts are exactly for this purpose, you don't need to move folders or files.
You log into your account and your personalized settings and OneDrive files come to you.

Unfortunately in companies, the IT area has the worst possible Windows practices. They reject the entire manual that Microsoft officially makes available on its website and do the opposite, causing several bugs.
Then these people are on the forums complaining that Windows is buggy.

 

[londiste]

Copying files (as in, documents, pictures, etc.) over, sure. But settings? Why?

Software settings, savegames? Down to most Windows settings, browser states etc.

There really are not that many things that can go wrong. NTUSER.DAT is a slight exception but you cannot copy that over when logged in and if copied over to a different user then Windows can generally take care of whatever needs to be adjusted for it to work properly.

 

[Chrispy_]

You're dealing with Mt. Stupid in the Dunning-Kruger effect, nothing more.

Welcome to dealing with people.

 

[biffzinker]

At that point why not roam?

Honestly I forgot about roaming profiles

 

[Konomi]

While it should be painless in theory (and the times I tried it, it was), you're still taking a risk. Especially if it is between OS versions. Personally I prefer just setting up things from scratch - takes longer, but cleans out junk from old app installs and the like. Unless you barely change what you install (and don't update things), makes much more sense to not be lazy or set up roaming profiles like others suggested.