HOWTO: Create a new windows profile, and move existing settings from the old profile

I have decided to write an article on how you would go about creating a new Windows XP Profile when the current profile becomes corrupt, or may have moved to a different machine.

I do this quite frequently as I have to move data and settings from one machine to another for the job I do.
The steps outlined below well based on moving data from and old user profile to a new one on the same machine, the same steps can be used when moving from machine to another.

These steps rely on the fact that you have access to the administrator user/ or a user that has administrator rights on your computer, when you create the profile you cannot be logged in as the user your trying to move.

1. Ensure that you the user you want to create a new profile for is logged off the computer.
2. Logon as a user that has administrator rights on the computer
3. Open windows explorer and ensure that the show hidden files and folders is turned on, also untick hide extensions for known file types and hide protected operating system files is unticked.
4. locate you the documents and settings folder and expand, in here you will locate the user profile that holds your my documents/desktop icons and so forth, for example if you logon to Windows XP with the username Sam, then you should see a folder named SAM in the documents & settings folder
5. Rename the folder that has your login name on it ( you check this be checking the date on the folder), call it something like sam_old, Note: if you receive a message saying access denied, then reboot your computer and try the following steps again
6.Once you have renamed the user profile folder, logout and then login again, this will create the new user profile folder
7. Once the machine has logged in again, and the new profile has been created, you now have to begin the reconstruction of profile.
8. follow step 3 again.
9. Follow Step 4, but now when you look inside the document & settings folder you will now see the username_old(ie sam_old) folder, and a new one with your login/username ie(sam)
10. Now goto the folder and then copy the contents of the desktop folder to the desktop folder in the new profile, ie documents & settings\sam_old\desktop to documents & settings\sam\desktop
11. Do the same as steps as Step 10 except this time you will copy the my documents folder.
12. If you use Microsoft office applications and want to keep your dictionary and proofing then copy the custom.dic file from documents & settings\\application data\Microsoft\proof to documents & settings\\application data\Microsoft\proof
13. If you use the quicklaunch icons along in the taskbar, copy the quicklaunch folder from documents & settings\\application data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\quicklaunch to the same location in the new profile.
14. Copy documents & settings\\favourites to the exact same location in the new profile.
15. If you use the autocorrect features in word/excel powerpoint then copy all the files from the documents & settings\\application data\Microsoft\Office to the new profile, also copy the documents & settings\\application data\Microsoft\Templates folder to the new profile.

These Instructions only cover the basics of creating a new profile, only do this if you need to as you will likely be spending a good few hours reconfiguring applications and so on.
Just remember all the files that are moved from the old profile need to go back into the same location on the new profile.

I hope this helps someone when they need it.