Copying old user profile files to a new user profile

From within the registry the old user profile became corrupted after deleting the .bak entry by mistake. Plus the old user profile isn't quite the same as the original. I'm able to logon to the old user profile but am not able to access any of the encrypted files. Which didn't really make any difference as kept non-encrypted backups

Anyway I decided to create a new user profile, rather than try to repair and mess around with the old one.

I've copied some files to the new user profile such under Desktop, Documents, etc. However I'm wondering if I should simply copy all the files under the old user profile's "Appdata" folder to the new user profile? There's currently over 2.5 gigs under the old user profiles "Appdata" folder and around 1.8 gigs under the new user profiles "Appdata" folder.

Under Appdata there are three folders, Local, LocalLow and Roaming

Appdata is a tricky folder mostly generated by windows or third party apps. What you want to keep depends upon what you have installed. Most of it you likely won't need to keep but if you want to be sure you might want to hire a computer guru to take a look at it and see if anything is needed.

Thank's but I think I'll fix it myself as I've done for more than 35 years working wtih PC's. I ask questions to get others opinions and input as I don't work with PC everyday as I once did.

I changed the security of the olduser appdata folder to include the newuser. Then I simply copied and pasted the olduser appdata folder over the newuser appdata folder. It took quite a while to copy more than 18 GB but there were no errors, only a few prompts asking if I wanted to copy over or merge files.

I logged off then logged back into the newuser account and there have been no ill effects. All I did was copy the olduser's appdata and it's subfolders to the newuser.

Searching online I found some information on the Appdata folder. It doesn't appear it will hurt anything to copy it over to the newuser. The newuser has access to the same application installs as the olduser, so there's not much difference other than the olduser was using applications before the newuser which changes files and possibly folders under the appdata folder.

The appdata folder basically stores settings and configuration files, possibly other data files for the Windows OS, Windows applications and 3rd party applications. E.g. a browsers history is often stored somewhere in one of the appdata subfolders. So the web browsers history would most likely be changed copying an older appdata folder over a newer one.

Some excepts from an online search.

"The AppData folder in Windows Vista is equal to the Documents and Settings folder in Windows XP"

"Windows uses the Roaming folder for application specific data, such as custom dictionaries, which are machine independent and should roam with the user profile. The AppData\Roaming folder in Windows Vista is the same as the Documents and Settings\username\Application Data folder in Windows XP"