Deleteing Local profiles

[Bob]

I am trying to do something about profiles on my company's laptops.

Because of really poor network links, the compamy has decided not to
implement roaming profiles. In fact, on the domain, no profile path is
specified for the users.
When a user logs on to a laptop, the default profile is copied and the user
can make updates to it, and the next time the user logs on these updates ar
remembered (which is the behaviour described in all the documnetation)
My company wants to change this bevaviour so that the user is presented with
a "standard" desktop each time they logon. This sounds like mandatory
profiles. But mandatory profiles are managed at the server level by
renaming NTUSER.DAT to NTUSER.MAN.
Also there is a regisrty setting for removing roaming profiles at logoff,
but it does not work on profiles created and stored locally.
The company insists that it does not want to store the profiles on a server
(due to the poor network links)

Is there any way to achieve this result - the user is presented with a
standard desktop each time they logon but that all profiles etc are stored
and maintained on the Windows XP client?

TIA

Bob

 

[Guest]

Assuming you are running windows 2000/2003, try using group policy it will
allow you to do quite a lot with a users desktop including setting screen
saver, background, what icons are available etc. You could also try using
folder redirection for the users desktop and start menu and redirect them to
a set folder on the c:\ drive with the required icons. This could then be
secured using permissions to stop changes from being made.

If you've not played with group policy before read up on it as there are
quite a lot of settings that whilst fun to apply to users may result in you
locking yourself out of the machine.

Here are a few links to get you started.

Introduction to group policy:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/gpintro.mspx

Windows group policy newsgroup
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/community/newsgroups/management/default.mspx

Steve

 

[Bob]

Thanks Steve,

We are looking at GPO-based arrangements where the comms infrastructure can
support it. We want something that happens LOCAL to the XP workstation
where comms is a bottleneck

Bob