Hatrack River Forum: A question for The Pixiest, or other network minded people

This is topic A question for The Pixiest, or other network minded people in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

Do you know how you can force a profile onto all users on a network? We are on NT Server 4.0 with XP Pro Machines (NTSF format), and I was asked to make everyone who logs in have the same background, screen saver, icons, et cetera.

I know I can paste shortcuts under "all folders" and everyone will have them, however, I want to share settings too.

I have set up a dummy account and copied all folders from that User Id's document and settings. I pasted them over the Default Users documents and All Users documents, but only the shortcuts are forced onto the other user ids.

How can I force the screen saver, background, and even show my computer and show internet (not the shortcuts but the actual link) on the desktop?

thank you [Smile]

Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :

They did this a lot on campus when I worked there. I don't know the exact settings to get my computer and IE to show on the desktop without actually remote-controlling the computer. However, the only way to make sure that each computer has the same desktop and icons is to periodically delete all the user profiles on the other computers. The default user profile doesn't do anything until a new user profile is created by the OS. XP uses that info to create the profiles after someone logs in to the domain. If you know much about scrpt writing (which I don't) it's easy to set the computers up to delete all the local profiles every few days or so. Otherwise it has to be done manually from an Admin account on each computer. Beyond that, I'm actually out of my domain so [Smile]

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

The correct answer is to get the hell off NT4.0 and move to Windows Server 2003, which makes your request a fairly trivial Group Policy/roaming profile issue.

There are workarounds, but absolutely none of them are as good as migrating to a platform that isn't completely, ridiculously obsolete. Moreover, the settings you're looking to change are stored in the XP client registry (both HKLM and HKCU), and it's clear from what you've said so far that you shouldn't be messing with pushing out universal registry changes.

[ February 08, 2005, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]

Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :

I'm with Tom. Move to Active Directory before Fred Flintstone asks for his computer back. =)

**raaaaaawk** It's a living.

Pix

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :

I have no clue how to do this, but I know it's possible.

About 6-8 years ago, the Navy command I contracted at had all their desktops set up so that no one could change the desktop settings. If this must be done at each workstation, it would only have to be done once, which gets rid of half your problem.

Dagonee

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

"About 6-8 years ago, the Navy command I contracted at had all their desktops set up so that no one could change the desktop settings."

This is indeed one of the least technically challenging workarounds in your situation. XP supports fairly sophisticated local policy. You could log onto each machine and set up local policy to prevent many changes and/or mandate certain settings. (As you get more sophisticated, you can do this remotely and in batches.)

But, again, a move to a real server OS is a better fit.

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

I know a new server is a must, but I am not in charge of budgeting. The server mostly works, and the boss says it stays.
[Grumble]

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Give your boss my E-mail and I'll explain to him the business case. Unless you guys are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, the CBA for an upgrade to AD isn't going to be a hard sell.

[ February 08, 2005, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

How much do you think an upgrade would cost?

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Do you only have the one server? Are you running any other form of directory services? And how many users do you have?

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

We have 2 servers, but one server really runs everything. ALl users (about 200) log onto the one server. There is a bookeeping server in one department, but I can access it through my other server log in.

All the printers are on the one server as well as all the network folders.

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Sounds like your best investment, in terms of manpower management, would be Small Business Server 2003. For 200 users, the list price of that upgrade would run around $9500. And if you're only running one box, I'd recommend something hefty; figure $4000 in hardware.

Note that you can do a lot better than that preliminary pricing if you've got a licensing account with somebody.

(BTW, I'd throw in Norton Ghost 2003 Enterprise when you make the purchase; in the environment you describe, this could cut your manpower in half.)

Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :

I solved the problem! Pasting into default users does work because the machines have DeepFreeze on them. I was checking it with my other profile, but since I had already logged in, my profile was already created. Once the machine powered off, my new local profile was based off of the default constraints.