Program Groups based on user groups?

[Matt]

I am building a multiuser system using Roaming Profiles.
I would like to customize the "Start > All Programs" menu
to the user's user group.

For example I would like to have Program Group that contains
basic programs that every user would use. Then have Programmers
group that contains Basic applications + programming applications.

Ideally the Program Groups should be assigned based on the user's group.
A user can belong to multiple groups.

How do I go about this?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Create the groups that you want. Then in the roaming profile, set the folder permissions on the various Start menu sub-folders to either allow, or not, a particular user group to read the folder. Be careful of using Deny. If a user is a member of two groups, and one group is Denied access, it will be unavailable, even if the second group has access. Better to uncheck Allow than to use Deny.

Note: This will only affect the Start Menu. It will not prevent the user from running the executable directly. But, you can do the same with the actual program folder, assuming you're deploying from an image. Otherwise, you'll have to do it on every machine. But this can be done with a BAT file and CACLS command to speed up the process. Open a Command Prompt window and enter CACLS /? for the command line options.

 

[Matt]

Create the groups that you want. Then in the roaming profile, set the folder permissions on the various Start menu sub-folders to either allow, or not, a particular user group to read the folder. Be careful of using Deny. If a user is a member of two groups, and one group is Denied access, it will be unavailable, even if the second group has access. Better to uncheck Allow than to use Deny.

Note: This will only affect the Start Menu. It will not prevent the user from running the executable directly. But, you can do the same with the actual program folder, assuming you're deploying from an image. Otherwise, you'll have to do it on every machine. But this can be done with a BAT file and CACLS command to speed up the process. Open a Command Prompt window and enter CACLS /? for the command line options.

Cool thanks, I'll give that a try. I'm starting to build the systems
up next week.

Matt