How to apply various settings to all users

[Steve Nielsen]

In XP Pro is there a way to apply desktop, appearance, file view, screen
saver, Start Menu and theme settings to all users on the workstation
without having to login as each user and manually change them? In other
words, I want to make the changes as administrator and have them all
apply to all users.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the

In XP Pro is there a way to apply desktop, appearance, file view,
screen saver, Start Menu and theme settings to all users on the
workstation without having to login as each user and manually change
them? In other words, I want to make the changes as administrator and
have them all apply to all users.

You can make them to 'default user' profile (i.e. make them to another
profile, and then copy it back to default user), which is used as the
basis for all new profiles. You'll probably have to set some policies if
you want nobody ever to be able to change these things (Lotsa luck!).

Doing it for users who have already been set up is more of a challenge
(I can't think of any easy way) .. you could copy a profile all over
their existing one, but that'd likely change more than you wanted, lose
some of their data, and generally make you rather unpopular.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the

Well this is for future reference. I work for a large school district
and I sometimes have to set up burn-in image drives for mass computer
orders with all our software installed. I have been manually setting up
generic users with same settings but would like to be able to easily
set specific users up with the same settings when we get the machines
in for the sake of uniformity. We won't prevent them from changing
things too much (in the case of staff) but at least having them all the
same as much as possible to start with will make it easier on us when
they call for help.

Exactly how (step by step) do I implement your suggestion of making a
user the default user profile and all? I apologize for my inexperience
- I've spent most of my experience dealing with network admin tasks,
not workstation setups.

Set up one user the way you want it. Call them 'user1' or something.
Logon as administrator (so User1 profile is not in use)
Copy c:\documents and settings\user1 folder to
c:\documents and settings\default user'
(actually the key bit is just the NTUser.dat file, which is the user
specific registry hive, but the rest .. favourites, whatever, won't
hurt).

(Or you can probably achieve the same thing from 'my computer',
properties, advanced, user profiles, settings, and use the 'copy'
feature to copy to a profile called 'default user').

After that, any new user you add to the system will start from whatever
the setting for 'default user' (i.e. copied from User1) were at the
time. Like I said, the drawback with this is that any subsequent changes
to default user won't get picked up by user profiles which have already
been created - it's basically used as a 'template' for new ones.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Copying everything didn't work...

"Cannot copy UsrClass: It is being used by another program or person."

and the copy process aborts.

Trying to copy just NTUser.DAT produces the same result.

Perhaps must be done form Command prompt only?

Steve

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Ok, the "copy to" bit worked - Thanks!

Steve

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the



Set up one user the way you want it. Call them 'user1' or something.
Logon as administrator (so User1 profile is not in use)
Copy c:\documents and settings\user1 folder to
c:\documents and settings\default user'
(actually the key bit is just the NTUser.dat file, which is the user
specific registry hive, but the rest .. favourites, whatever, won't hurt).

(Or you can probably achieve the same thing from 'my computer',
properties, advanced, user profiles, settings, and use the 'copy'
feature to copy to a profile called 'default user').

After that, any new user you add to the system will start from whatever
the setting for 'default user' (i.e. copied from User1) were at the
time. Like I said, the drawback with this is that any subsequent changes
to default user won't get picked up by user profiles which have already
been created - it's basically used as a 'template' for new ones.