How do you create a default user profile for a windows 7 Pe system?

I suggest trying to make these changes using the built-in Administrator account.
You might also want to turn off your anti-virus and firewall software temporarily while you perform this action.

Customize a user profile as needed
Go to Control Panel and create a new dummy admininstrator
Reboot, log in as the dummy admin
Browse to C: and go into the Folder settings and Show all hidden/system files
Browse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the Default folder to make a second (backup) copy of it
Browse to C:\Users and CTRL-drag the customized user profile to make a second copy of it
SHIFT-DEL the original Default folder
Rename the customized folder copy to Default
Create a new dummy admin and reboot/log in to test it

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289

Sekarc4u, no offense intended, but on a Windows 7 machine that probably isn't a very good idea.  I believe you will find that function isn't supported.  As a result, Microsoft disabled the abilitiy to use the Copy to button in the User Profile manager for everything except the Default profile.  The potential problems are described in this TechNet blog:

Configuring Default User Settings – Full Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

More specifically, the manual profile copy process can cause issues such as:

•Their list of most frequently run programs is not cleared
•Whether the user has been introduced to the Start menu (will be set to TRUE for the source account, but should be FALSE for new users). Windows Explorer does some special things the first time you log on to introduce you to the Start menu and other new features.
•Whether the user is an administrator (and should therefore see the Administrative Tools, etc).
•The personalized name for “My Documents” will be incorrect. All users documents folders will be called “Administrator's Documents”.  This is documented in the Knowledge Base article “The Desktop.ini File Does Not Work Correctly When You Create a Custom Default Profile” (http://support.microsoft.com/?id=321281).
•The default download directory for IE will be set to the Administrator's Desktop folder.
•The default Save and Open locations for some application with point to the Administrator's documents folder.
•Windows 7 Libraries are broken.

Essentially, you would need to create an unattend.xml file and run Sysprep on  the computer. In the unattend.xml file you can specify that it copy the configured profile to the default profile. Here is a great article that will help you with the process written by Ivanoviola, one of the EE community's Sysprep experts:

Windows 7 Sysprep

Thanks for your answers, I was really trying not to have to  use the unattended.xml file to create the default profile but it looks like I have no choice. I will get back to you with my results.

Saw9648, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

First of all, take a moment to assess what you're trying ot accomplish within the default user profile.  You may find that you can meet virtually all of your goals by using a relatively simple combination of Group Policy configurations along with copying shortcuts to the Public user's desktop.  Microsoft publishes a very comprehensive set of searchable spreadsheets that contain every conceivable Group Policy within Windows 7, along with their associated registry keys:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=25250

Additionally, the Public desktop affords you the capability to copy shortcuts that every profile on that machine can access, and it's located here:

%systemdrive%\Users\Public\Desktop

Last but not least, if you are still moving forward with the unattend.xml answer file method, ensure that you thoroughly read Ivanoviola's article as well as the follow-up comments.  If you have any questions, post them within the article comments.  You will find that he is usually glad to help, since he has spent a great deal of time refining the exact same procedure that you are attempting to use.

Best of luck!

The Image I am trying to create should be pretty basic as I want the background to have our company logo, our intranet as the ie home page, a company screen saver and a company user logo for the user account. I am trying to do this on an HP T5740 WES 7 thin client device. We are using folder redirection and we our publishing the applications.

Basically, we are trying to use them as locked down workstations on the domain that allow people to change simple things like desktop background and printer installations, maybe java updates, but little else.   We have contacted HP for help with these settings and the response has been that they are not intended to be joined to a domain.  They say that thin clients are supposed to be treated as public kiosk work centers. I find this hard to believe and that is why Im so intent on geting this default profile working.

So far in my testing, the image defaults back to a user account.
I am still trying to work with the instructions for the unattended.xml answer file however the .wim that was used to create the image lacks many catalog entries that i need for the mdification to the default profile image. I would like to try and use a .wim from a windows 7 enterprise image. That way i would have a full catalog. But Im a newbe and not sure if this is possible or if Im on the right track.

You have been awsome so far. Any thoughts to the direction Im heading?

Run5k,
These all seem to work great. However we still have an issue after we apply the image to the systems. We are getting an error with the profiles it seems to default to the User account and we dont whant that. We also do not get an option to select other users. Any advice? Do we need to run sysprep and create an answer file?

Thank you for all the help so far.

I must admit that ever since the Vista generation of Windows operating systems, I have found it is usually a good idea to run Sysprep prior to cloning systems.  However, as I mentioned earlier we typically don't do anything that is do in-depth that it requires an answer file.  Instead, our updates are normally done through group policy configurations, pre-installing critical applications, etc.  After that, we would initiate a simple Sysprep using Generalize & OOBE, and then use Norton Ghost to clone the image.

That being said, I may be a bit confused regarding your current issues.  When you say that the newly installed Windows image "defaults to the User account," what do you mean?  Are these computers on a domain, on a workgroup, or stand-alone?  Which version of Windows 7 is this (Home Premium, Professional, etc.)?  Is Windows automatically booting into a default account without a user/password query?

These systems are Hp t5740 thin clients running Wes 7 pe. We modified the local admin profile with the background and default user picture along with java, flash, and shock player. We then clone the image using the Hp device manager.

These are not on the domain yet.
I need to test a few more times to see if once joined to the domain I will be able to login as any user and all gpo settings apply. And hopefully the system will not default to that User account. I will keep you posted.

Have a great weekend. And thanks for all your input.