I have a simple user control that presents the user a form to complete. The code behind creates the member successfully, but I cannot populate the member extended properties that I created.

I created a member type with properties like First Name, Last Name, etc.

After I create the user, I am trying to set the properties in code:

MembershipUser newUser= Membership.CreateUser(txtUsername.Text, txtPassword.Text, txtEmail.Text);
        var profile = System.Web.Profile.ProfileBase.Create(newUser.UserName);
        profile["firstName"] = txtFirst.Text;
        profile.Save();

I have tried many variations on the above code, but the properties don't show up in the back end. The member is there, but the property is blank.

I used this as a guide: http://www.aaron-powell.com/umbraco-members-profiles and wrote my own class, edited the web.config etc, but still I am not having success. In one thread Neils said this was not supported and should not be used. Can anyone confirm that 4.7 does not have a "built in" way to store extra user properties via code/api?