mandatory local profiles - is this possible?

[D. Fox]

Our environment is a university computer lab with XP machines. Each
machine typically will be used by numerous different students
throughout the course of an average day. They login for file and
print services to a Samba server, but for various reasons, the Samba
server is NOT configured to allow roaming profiles, nor will it hold a
mandatory profile for our XP machines.

That leaves me with the local machines to work with. Using
gpedit.msc, I have enabled "use local profiles only" and "do not
propagate profile changes to server", so now, what's happening is XP
is creating a profile on the hard drive for every student who logs in.
We obviously can't store thousands of local profiles for students on
a hard drive, so this doesn't work. What I need is this: when a
student logs in to the server, ONE local profile is loaded, each time,
no matter who logs in. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Richie]

Can you create a 'generic' student login?
That way the students login with the same user name and access the same
profile every time no matter who logs in.
Btw, why would you want to have all students using a different account log
in? Sounds like an admin nightmare.

Another part solution (multiple profiles):
If you want them all to have the same look and setup when they login, no
matter the username, then login with a 'student level account login' and
setup one machine exactly as you want it. I would also suggest disabling the
frilly XP options (System Properties, Advanced tab, Performance settings,
uncheck at least the first four). This will make the desktop interface run
much better. Then reboot and login as the administrator on that "local
machine". Change your Folder options to view all files and hidden system
files. Copy the contents of the student user profile, under Document and
Settings, that you setup earlier. Copy it to a share you can access from
each workstation. Paste the contents to the Default user under Documents and
Settings on all the workstations. That way the next time someone new logins
in (no matter who they are), when their profile is created, they'll have the
desktop and icon setup necessary. It will create there user name profile,
but it will be a much faster process because so many things are already
determined for XP by the Default profile. This is the process I use to
create the look and profile I wish all users to have from the start.
Granted, this should be done prior to creating a ghost image for
installation to all client machines, but it can be done 'after the fact'. It
is just much more time consuming.

Fix three:
Wouldn't want to go there, but you can change the registry to redirect the
profile of who ever logs in to the same profile on a machine. I guess you
could do it to one computer and import the registry changes to all of them.
It's a fairly involved, advanced hack. It's pretty much the same as
redirecting a new login to an old profile. This has to be done sometimes
after a network domain name change.
The net effect of this would be the same as creating a generic student user
account, but this would be done by the local computer.

Rich

 

[Nathan Harmsworth]

Hi folks

Richie,

Thanks for the response. We cannot use a generic login - the students
have individual usernames/passwords to the Samba server to access
their own private shares on the server.

I would suggest getting a windows 2000 (or preferably 2003) Server and using
that
as a logon/file server to accomplish that task [We have used a NT 4 Server
for ages
and it has worked like a dream - want a 2003 server too now ]

You can create a 'trust' to another server - it worked with my NT 4 & 2003
servers,
although I admit, I dont know whether it would work with a Samba server.

Anyhow, best of luck.

Regards,