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Post New Requests Here / Idea and REQUEST: The Magical XP User Copy Machine!
« on: May 10, 2008, 05:32 PM »
There is a procedure for copying one Windows XP Pro user profile to another. There are articles about how to do it on the Microsoft site, and the internets are chock-a-block with echoes and paraphrases of those articles, and all of them are just as incomprehensible as the original one on the Microsoft site.
The goal of the Magical XP User Copy Machine is to allow us to copy the current user, that is fixed just like we like it, and then change our desktop icons and wallpaper, thus giving us a choice of outfits when we start Windows, just like when we open our closets and decide what we would like to wear that day.
What should be a simple and straightforward matter of a click or two to accomplish what is in my view, a most reasonable thing people would want to do, is a multi-step, confusing and complicated process, with lots of chances for a clueless person, or even a clueful one who is distracted or in a hurry, to mess things up.
The Intended End User is a person of my own formidable level of cluelessness or greater, and also Authentic Power-Usin' Nerds who are just very busy with important and ponderous tasks, but who are also human and might like a costume change now and then, without having to commit a complete valve and ring job to get it.
Another thing about the Intended End User - we may be clueless, but we are not so clueless that we do not realize that putting stuff like WindowBlinds on our machines is going to mean paying out a lot of system resources for what is a purely cosmetic function - even if it does not mess our computers up, which, if you google around, you will see that this is not a rare occurrence.
And we probably don't have a lot of icons on our desktop.
For instance, I have just a few broad category folder icons, and inside each one is a whole mess of subfolders and stuff. So if we get a copy of our current user, we are not going to have to spend all day just changing those icons and wallpaper.
But even if we do have a lot of icons, this program would still save a lot of time. Because while we the Clueless Intended End Users may want the program to achieve a cosmetic goal, the business of copying users is not about cosmetics at all, but about stuff we do not begin to understand. All those settings and things.
So here is how the Magical XP User Copy Machine would work, in an ideal world.
You would simply click "copy current profile to" and make up a name for the new user, type that in the blank, and sit back.
Then a thing would pop up telling you that you were successfully logged into your new user, and from there you could change your wallpaper and your handful of icons. Now you have a whole new look, and next time you start windows, you can log in to whichever user you want, depending on what colors, etc, you are in the mood for, and all of those mysterious settings that we the Clueless Intended End Users don't understand, or probably even know about, have been magically and safely copied, including all our Firefox stuff, which we had finally gotten just like we wanted it. At least for today.
The program would also have a sync feature, so that if, while wearing our pink clothes, we install something or change some preference or setting somewhere or other, at the end of the day, when we do things like update and run our antivirus and Malware Bytes, we can also click our Magical XP User Copy Machine, and click Sync with, and check off all the users we want whatever we did that day to sync with.
This would also give us the option of keeping one or more like they were yesterday, in case it turns out we don't like whatever I changed today, but being Clueless Intended End Users, we will of course, either have forgotten what that was or not be able to find it.
Is this something that someone here could whip up in a minute or two? Or is it all more complicated than I ever dreamed or imagined, like my last week's idea about context menus?
Or does it already exist but I just didn't find it, either because I did a sucky job of googling, or google did a sucky job of finding it for me even though I googled just fine?
The goal of the Magical XP User Copy Machine is to allow us to copy the current user, that is fixed just like we like it, and then change our desktop icons and wallpaper, thus giving us a choice of outfits when we start Windows, just like when we open our closets and decide what we would like to wear that day.
What should be a simple and straightforward matter of a click or two to accomplish what is in my view, a most reasonable thing people would want to do, is a multi-step, confusing and complicated process, with lots of chances for a clueless person, or even a clueful one who is distracted or in a hurry, to mess things up.
The Intended End User is a person of my own formidable level of cluelessness or greater, and also Authentic Power-Usin' Nerds who are just very busy with important and ponderous tasks, but who are also human and might like a costume change now and then, without having to commit a complete valve and ring job to get it.
Another thing about the Intended End User - we may be clueless, but we are not so clueless that we do not realize that putting stuff like WindowBlinds on our machines is going to mean paying out a lot of system resources for what is a purely cosmetic function - even if it does not mess our computers up, which, if you google around, you will see that this is not a rare occurrence.
And we probably don't have a lot of icons on our desktop.
For instance, I have just a few broad category folder icons, and inside each one is a whole mess of subfolders and stuff. So if we get a copy of our current user, we are not going to have to spend all day just changing those icons and wallpaper.
But even if we do have a lot of icons, this program would still save a lot of time. Because while we the Clueless Intended End Users may want the program to achieve a cosmetic goal, the business of copying users is not about cosmetics at all, but about stuff we do not begin to understand. All those settings and things.
So here is how the Magical XP User Copy Machine would work, in an ideal world.
You would simply click "copy current profile to" and make up a name for the new user, type that in the blank, and sit back.
Then a thing would pop up telling you that you were successfully logged into your new user, and from there you could change your wallpaper and your handful of icons. Now you have a whole new look, and next time you start windows, you can log in to whichever user you want, depending on what colors, etc, you are in the mood for, and all of those mysterious settings that we the Clueless Intended End Users don't understand, or probably even know about, have been magically and safely copied, including all our Firefox stuff, which we had finally gotten just like we wanted it. At least for today.
The program would also have a sync feature, so that if, while wearing our pink clothes, we install something or change some preference or setting somewhere or other, at the end of the day, when we do things like update and run our antivirus and Malware Bytes, we can also click our Magical XP User Copy Machine, and click Sync with, and check off all the users we want whatever we did that day to sync with.
This would also give us the option of keeping one or more like they were yesterday, in case it turns out we don't like whatever I changed today, but being Clueless Intended End Users, we will of course, either have forgotten what that was or not be able to find it.
Is this something that someone here could whip up in a minute or two? Or is it all more complicated than I ever dreamed or imagined, like my last week's idea about context menus?
Or does it already exist but I just didn't find it, either because I did a sucky job of googling, or google did a sucky job of finding it for me even though I googled just fine?