is there such a thing as "mandatory LOCAL profile"?

[D. Fox]

I'm finding it hard to believe this is an impossible task, but so far
it appears to be - our environment is a school computer lab, with
numerous XP boxes. We use a Samba server for students to login to
where they can store files. The university does not wish to implement
roaming profiles, nor can we put a mandatory profile on the server
itself. This leaves the following problem - everytime a student logs
in at an XP box, the stupid XP "temporary" profile loads up. I would
like a lab profile with my own pre-defined settings, icons, wallpaper,
etc, to load up no matter WHO logs in to the machine. Can this be
done without using roaming or mandatory profiles delivered from a
server? Every local configuration setting I've tried causes a new
profile to be created if a new user logs in. I'm think there ought to
be a way for an admin to set up one standard profile that loads no
matter what, but I'm stumped...any suggestions would be appreciated.

Dave

 

[Mike Kolitz]

HOW TO: Assign a Mandatory User Profile in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=307800

 

[Malke]

Mike, thanks, but I've already been to this article...it requires that
the mandatory profile be placed on a SERVER...we are not able to do
that. I need a mandatory LOCAL policy to load from the local drive no
matter who logs in...beginning to think that this really is an
impossible task.

OK, why not create a profile called "student54" or whatever number for
that machine. Have the students login that way but save their work to
their particular folder on the server. You could assign certain kids to
that machine and map folders on the server for each individual kids (to
avoid having to map too many "save" folders on each box). I hope I was
clear about that. ;-)

Malke

 

[Mike Kolitz]

Hi Dave,
I see your problem, and I'm not sure what to recommend.
Assuming all the kids log in with the same ID (which they'd have to if you
don't have a central authentication authority like a Domain Controller), you
can still assign a mandatory local profile for a specific account my
renaming the NTUSER.DAT to NTUSER.MAN.

So, if all the kids log in as STUDENT, you'll need to rename the STUDENT
user's NTUSER.DAT to NTUSER.MAN.

That, or set up a domain.

Otherwise, I'm out of ideas... sorry.