All popular web browsers support the creation and use of multiple user profiles. There are however huge differences in the way those profiles are created and loaded. This article explains in detail how to create new user profiles in Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Creating a user profile in Opera

Opera uses one of the most complicated processes to create a new user profile. The manual process involves creating new folders, copying Opera profile folder information and editing configuration files. The Opera community has created a program, called Opera Profile Creator, that automates most of the process.

opera profile creator

The profile generator is compatible with most Opera editions, including the latest Opera 10.x releases. The software detects the Opera path automatically, and will create a shortcut to that profile on the desktop. All the user has to do is to select a new profile directory for the newly created Opera profile.

Creating a user profile in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer does not support multiple user profiles running under the same user account. The only valid option, as far as we know, is to create new Windows accounts for each user, which are then automatically rewarded with a new Internet Explorer user profile.

Creating a user profile in Firefox

Firefox is the only web browser in this list that offers a profile manager. The command

firefox.exe -ProfileManager

loads the profile manager supporting the creation, renaming and deletion of user profiles in the browser.

firefox profile manager

The profile manager acts as a profile loader as well, a more comfortable solution is the creation of program shortcuts that load a specific user profile.

Locate the firefox executable. Windows users usually find it in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\. Right click firefox.exe and select create shortcut from the context menu. Right-click the new shortcut and select Properties. Locate the target parameter and append

-ProfileManager "Profile Name"

at the end. Replace Profile Name with the name of the new profile. The profile manager displays the name, in case it needs to be looked up.

Creating a user profile in Google Chrome

Google Chrome supports multiple user profiles. New profiles are created with a command line parameter, that looks like this:

chrome.exe "&ndash&ndashuser&ndashdata&ndashdir="C:\Location\Of\New\UserProfile"

google chrome user profile

An elevated command prompt may be needed on some operating systems. Google Chrome will automatically create a new user profile if the selected directory does not exist or contain profile information, otherwise it will load the existing profile and start the browser with it. It is recommended to create a desktop shortcut to start the newly created profiles without the command line.

The easiest way to do that in Windows is to right-click chrome.exe, and Create Shortcut from the context menu. The command line parameter needs to be added to the shortcut now. Right-click the newly created shortcut, and select properties from the menu. Locate the target parameter and append “––user–data–dir=”C:\Location\Of\New\UserProfile” to it.

A double-click on the new shortcut will run Chrome with the newly created profile, a double-click on the old link will run it with the default profile. This process can be repeated multiple times.

Have additional tips that you would like to share with us? Let us know in the comments.

It can happen that Windows fails to recognize the user profile and folder that is linked to the user account. This has the result that a new user profile is created on the next log in which will from then on be used instead of the old one.

This process can be reverted by either editing relevant settings in the Windows Registry and changing permissions on the computer system or by using a software like Reprofiler.

Reprofiler lists all user accounts and profile folders upon startup. The top window lists the user accounts with information about the host, user, SID and assigned folder while the lower window lists the profile folders with links to the data folder and assigned user(s).

Problems with username and folders can be fixed by selecting a user in the top window and a profile folder in the lower window. A click on Assign will link those together. It is furthermore possible to detach a user and a profile folder, take a look at the properties (which lists information such as disk space used or last access) or erase data which can be handy afterwards to delete an empty or unused user profile.

Properties: This button always applies to the selected item in the profile (lower) pane. The information such as disk space and last-used date may be of help in deciding which profile is a genuine one containing data, or a blank one.

Assign: Performs several actions which, when combined, attach a profile to an account.

System Accounts: Check the tickbox between the user and profile lists if you wish to see the system-generated accounts and profiles. Normally these will not need touching, but the facility is there if needed.

Detach: Allows you to break the association between a user and the profile. What will happen here is that at next logon the user will be treated as a new account by the system, and will automatically be issued with a fresh profile based on the Default User profile’s settings. This may be convenient if you wish to default the computer’s settings whilst retaining the same accountname.

Delete: As it says on the tin. This deletes the profile-folder and all its contents. Only do this if you are sure the folder contains no wanted data. It does not delete the useraccount

Reprofiler is a portable software program for the Windows operating system to fix user profile association errors. It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and can be downloaded directly from the developer’s website. (via Shellcity)

From an administrator’s point of view lots of things that can be altered in a way that make the computer or part of it unusable for that user. This can happen in a family that is sharing a computer as well if someone who is not that proficient with computers changes certain settings all the time or likes to “tweak” settings to optimize the computer.

There is a very easy way to prevent users of a computer to change the settings in their user profile permanently. They can still change everything but those settings will only be temporarily changed.

This can be done by changing the NTUSER.DAT file into a NTUSER.MAN file for that user. Windows automatically recognizes the profile as a mandatory profile from then on. The NTUSER.DAT file is located in the user’s %USERNAME% directory, usually c:\documents and settings\username\. This should work on all Windows NT operating systems including Windows XP and Windows Vista.