In an effort to explore alternate means than to use MDT and MCCS with a "copyprofile" answer file to modify and prep a windows 10 1809 image with a default user profile template; i elevated the "DefaultAccount" profile to a user and made the profile active with net user on a clean test image. I then used "netplwiz.exe" to expose the account to the login screen and was able to login to the account and made all the registry and file explorer changes that i wanted to. I then logged out of the account and restored the account back to its default group and net user state (System Managed Group / inactive). However, when creating a new user profile (lets use "Test_User"), it seems as if windows isn't using the user profile "default" to base the settings for newly created Windows profiles. Has any one else attempted to do the same in regards to creating a modified "default" profile on an existing installed image in this manner and been successful? Am i just missing something simple? Thanks,
I ended up finding a solution that is fairly simple. Just create a power shell script that loads the default user hive and make the needed edit, and then unloads it once you are done with that portion (time to catalog all the edits i need). Seems as though you need to use a configuration layout .xml to edit the start menu and taskbar pins.