question about new profiles

  • Thread starter Thread starter RC_Moonpie
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RC_Moonpie

If I want to add a new profile for a new user on my XP laptop, will i
have to re-load all the programs so he can use them? Can he see the
documents created in other programs? How can I share some, and
restrict others?

thanks for any help
 
The new profile will see all the applications that were installed for all
users, to share documents put them in the shared documents folder, the new
profile won't be able to access other profiles my docs folders if they are
protected.
 
RC_Moonpie said:
If I want to add a new profile for a new user on my XP laptop, will i
have to re-load all the programs so he can use them? Can he see the
documents created in other programs? How can I share some, and
restrict others?

thanks for any help
Click to expand...

The answer is... it depends.

Some applications, on first run in a new profile, will need to rerun part of
their install to set up parameters for that profile. Many Office programs
(both MS and Corel) do this as they need to identify the user, make registry
entries to set up file paths to new folders, etc. Some apps will require
access to the install media (the CD) to do this. Some won't. In either
case, it isn't a complete install.

Other apps may have considerably different schemes, particularly heavily
protected apps that require hardware keys to run.

Some may need nothing at all.

As to document access, this depends on things like the permissions levels of
the user and the permissions set on other user's folders. In many cases
with NTFS disks, that user would have to either be granted access or Take
Ownership, and the other person is going to notice that.

You should - you may find that you MUST - use passwords on the accounts when
sharing files. You should have passwords anyway for security reasons; some
automated tasks (backups, A/V scans) will by default not run on profiles
without passwords.

If this is XP Home, you may need to restart in Safe Mode to get to the file
permissions sections. In XP Pro, you may need to turn off Simple File
Sharing.

In XP Pro, you have many more options for Policies to restrict what can be
run. More information would be needed, and you would have to start with
carefully defining what exactly you wish (or need!) to do.

Finally, if the OS is XP Pro, and if encryption was invoked via EFS, *only*
the original account (or an account using the imported credentials) can
access the encrypted files. To go back to another question you haven't
asked, many people invoke encryption and don't export the credentials,
which leads to permanent data loss when the account is damaged. So if you
encrypt with EFS, finish the job and back up the credentials, *and test
them*.

HTH
-pk
 
The answer is... it depends.

Some applications, on first run in a new profile, will need to rerun part of
their install to set up parameters for that profile. Many Office programs
(both MS and Corel) do this as they need to identify the user, make registry
entries to set up file paths to new folders, etc. Some apps will require
access to the install media (the CD) to do this. Some won't. In either
case, it isn't a complete install.

Other apps may have considerably different schemes, particularly heavily
protected apps that require hardware keys to run.

Some may need nothing at all.

As to document access, this depends on things like the permissions levels of
the user and the permissions set on other user's folders. In many cases
with NTFS disks, that user would have to either be granted access or Take
Ownership, and the other person is going to notice that.

You should - you may find that you MUST - use passwords on the accounts when
sharing files. You should have passwords anyway for security reasons; some
automated tasks (backups, A/V scans) will by default not run on profiles
without passwords.

If this is XP Home, you may need to restart in Safe Mode to get to the file
permissions sections. In XP Pro, you may need to turn off Simple File
Sharing.

In XP Pro, you have many more options for Policies to restrict what can be
run. More information would be needed, and you would have to start with
carefully defining what exactly you wish (or need!) to do.

Finally, if the OS is XP Pro, and if encryption was invoked via EFS, *only*
the original account (or an account using the imported credentials) can
access the encrypted files. To go back to another question you haven't
asked, many people invoke encryption and don't export the credentials,
which leads to permanent data loss when the account is damaged. So if you
encrypt with EFS, finish the job and back up the credentials, *and test
them*.

HTH
-pk
Click to expand...

thank you, very helpful
 
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