New Profile First Run Script

[SPxNZ]

I notice that when new user profile is setup for Windows 11, logging in for the first time runs what seems to be a PowerShell script (correct me if I'm wrong). It then restarts explorer.exe and all the customization is done.

I've experienced once instance where the PowerShell script didn't run. It wasn't a biggy, as I simple deleted and re-created the user profile, which then worked. My question is, where can I manually run this if this happens again?

Going a little further, how can I copy these scripts to an existing computer that has never used the unattended generator? I assume I can copy the scripts from C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts, but then I would need a way to execute them.

Thanks for your remarkable work! It's made new Windows 11 installs much more bearable.

[cschneegans]

Whenever a user logs in for the first time, the PowerShell script C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\UserOnce.ps1 is run. When that script fails or behaves unexpectedly, check the %TEMP%\UserOnce.log log file.

I make no guarantees that running these scripts outside of Windows Setup works at all, but you may try to following:

• Copy C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts to the destination computer.
• Open a PowerShell session with administrative rights.
• Run these commands:

Get-Content -LiteralPath 'C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\Specialize.ps1' -Raw | Invoke-Expression;
reg.exe load "HKU\DefaultUser" "C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.DAT";
Get-Content -LiteralPath 'C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\DefaultUser.ps1' -Raw | Invoke-Expression;
reg.exe unload "HKU\DefaultUser";
Get-Content -LiteralPath 'C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\FirstLogon.ps1' -Raw | Invoke-Expression;

• For any user already created, log in to that user, open a PowerShell session and run this command:

Get-Content -LiteralPath 'C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts\UserOnce.ps1' -Raw | Invoke-Expression;

[SPxNZ]

Wonderful! Thank you so much for that info, it's very much appreciated.

I'll have more devices to try this on later, but the initial one seems to have worked.