Basics of integrating modern Macs onto a Windows network, FAQ: Creating a Default User Profile
With the
baseline install image ready to be produced, you should tidy up OS components if you haven't already, and create a new user to use as your "template" for the default login environment. This account should be a normal user level account rather than an admin account or anything else unusual.
Ensure that all apps run under this user account. In fact I suggest you make sure that you test all your applications once more, to catch things like "per user" registration details. Configure default settings for applications, etc. from this account. This is your chance to insert any "standard" templates and make site specific changes to applications (for example, we enter our 'standard' Final Cut Pro settings at this point).
Arrange the Dock how you want, and ensure any custom user settings such as wallpaper, screensavers, accessibility settings, are all how you want them to be.
With all this done, logout of the template account, then login again with the root account and copy the contents of the template user’s folder to
/system/library/user template/English.lproj (this folder may be different depending on the language/locality you're working in).
Next, check the copy you just made in the templates folder and remove any settings that you don’t need – pay special attention to things like keychain files, and "bloat" from programs that install lots of default template information into areas such as
~/library when first ran.
Finally, reset permissions using either the disk utility for the whole disk or using the chmod command directly on the
English.lproj folder.
At this point, you're finished but you should test your new template by creating and logging in as several new user accounts to check the template works as expected for a new user. Don’t forget to delete these test users prior to making your final deployment image!