Q:

User Group Policy in Server 2008 to set Default Profile settings

I have computers to deploy and want to apply changes to the default user policy on these PCs automatically. What's the best way to do this?
Our current procedure is:

Create the computer account in an OU called "Deployment" on our server
Unbox the PC
Login as the user who will be receiving the PC
Change settings (pre-configure outlook, authorize Office, etc.) move computer account to correct OU
Place the PC on the users desk.

I would like to make as many of the changes in step #4 with Group Policies applied to the Deployment OU if possible since they're largely repeated for every computer. There are a dozen policies created and the computer ones apply correctly but the user policies do not.
I understand this is because the end user is not in our "Deployment" OU. I don't want to apply these settings to the user at their current station just the new PC I'm working on.
I believe I have the desired effect with Group Policy Loopback Replace enabled on policies that need user policies changed but this just feels wrong/inefficient/complicated to maintain.

Am I doing this correctly?
Is Group Policy Loopback the only way to change user accounts on one computer? What do you do to setup a user on a new PC?

A:

Loopback policy processing in merge mode is the correct way of doing this. It's how we give users both a new profile and enforced settings on existing users.

