Default Profile Favorites do not get copied when new user logs in

The default user profile is located in C:\Users\default and it is used for customizing the user profiles for the new users logging in to the machine. When the new user logs into the machine it will fetch the profile configuration information from the default folder and creates its own new user profile in C:\users\%username%.  For examples if we decide what are the favorites links should appear in new user’s internet explorer, we need to just copy the favorite links to the default folder in C:\users\default\.  So that the new user logs in to the machine for the first time, all the favorites will be copied into the C:\users\%username%\favorites folder.

I have found an issue where the favorites links are not copying to the new users directory. The issue was that the files are copying from the default folder to the new user’s favorites  folder when he logs in. But it got deleted automatically when user launches IE. I have reset the IE settings but still the issue was persist. Later I decided to explore IE program files and  found a “custom” folder. This Custom folder contains IE related settings which are customized by using IEAK ( IE administration KIT). IEAK is used for doing Branding on IE and customize few settings such as favorites, feeds, quick link etc. I have opened the INSTALL.INS under C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\CUSTOM\ in a notepad. I saw a lot of entries related to different IE settings. I had a machine where the problem was not there. I opened the same file INSTALL.INS from the working machine and compared with non working machine . Most of all the entries were looks similar, but I found one extra entry FavoritesDelete=0x708F from the INSTALL.INS file on the non working machine.



I did delete the entry FavoritesDelete=0x708F and saved the file from the administrator user. Later I created a new user and logged into the machine. Hurray ..All the favorites which I copied on default user were appearing on the IE of the new user. The entry FavoritesDelete=0x708F was created during the IEAK customization of IE package to delete  all the entries in the Favorites as a default for each user.

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