Old user settings lost after group membership change

[Guest]

When I remove a user from the Administrators group, all the user's
personalised settings disappear. The user was already a member of the Power
Users group. When the user then logs in, everything has to be set up again.
However if I put the user back into the Admin group the settings return. The
profile path of the user remains the same throughout.

This is similar to the situation in KB 105193 except in that situation only
the printer settings are lost.

How can I get around this?

Thanking you in anticipation

Shirley

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

When I remove a user from the Administrators group, all the user's
personalised settings disappear. The user was already a member of the Power
Users group. When the user then logs in, everything has to be set up again.
However if I put the user back into the Admin group the settings return. The
profile path of the user remains the same throughout.

This is similar to the situation in KB 105193 except in that situation only
the printer settings are lost.

How can I get around this?

Thanking you in anticipation

Shirley

What exactly do you mean with "personalised settings"?

I suspect that your user's profile folder has an inappropriate
set of NTFS permissions. When you demote her, she loses
her access to some of her profile files. When you promote
her, she regains that access.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply, Pegasus.

Some history will probably help. First the User (Shirley) and Admin are both
me. I am quite an experienced computer user but definitely not a systems
administrator. I set up the computer using Shirley as the administrator
because I was told this should help to avoid some of the problems with my
previous setup (then Admin setup the system but Shirley didn't get adequate
access especially to Norton Antivirus and Symantec anti-spam settings). Then
Admin made Shirley a member of Power Users as well as Administrators. The
Admin removed Shirley from Administrators Group.

When Shirley then logs in, it's like a new user in every respect except one
- my QuickLaunch toolbar (out of order) is still present but in the wrong
place. There is no internet connection, no address book, no mailboxes, no
wallaper, no folder preferences, nothing.

What is the user's profile folder? Initially the Shirley setup had no
profile path specified so I entered my Documents and Settings path. Probably
this was the wrong thing to do. Sort of logical but wrong?

A teacher friend of mine used to classifiy kids into two groups -
interferers and passive-ists. I am an interferer, unfortunately when it comes
to computers.

I hope this extra info helps.

Shirley

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You write "Initially the Shirley setup had no profile path specified".
This is not possible - every user has a profile folder. It gets created
when that user first logs on, and it resides (as you mention) in
c:\documents and settings. Now Shirley might have several profile
folders in this location. I suggest you do this:
- Log on as administrator.
- Move all Shirley folders to c:\Junk.
- Put Shirley into the desired group.
- Log on as Shirley.
- Configure her IE6 settings.
- Log off, then log on again as Shirley to see if the settings are
preserved.