Making all users administrators

[EM64T]

I'm running a K-8 school, and I just recently loaded Windows XP Pro on our two computer labs. XP is great for the kids, I haven't had any problems with the machines locking up, or acting strange. My complaints however are with how much of a pain it is to change settings and want them globally applied for all users (like install one printer, install Office Clipart, etc.).

Is there any way I can just make it so that all users who login to the computer(s) are administrators of that particular computer (rather than admins on the network domain)?

Basically this is what I want to do:

- Install software *once* for ALL users who login to that machine. Too often I'm having to install software for every user as they login...

- Install Office clipart *once* for all users

- Install printers *once* for all users

I don't know if there is a way to do all that through policies...I'm running a WinNT domain.

 

[Zoplax]

All you should have to do to make these people local administrators is open Computer Management, go to your local Administrators group, and then add the domain user in question to that group.

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q305709

If you really want to make them all local Admins, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Users and Groups, Groups, Administrators, add the group Everyone.

 

[coyoterojo]

If you think it's a pain administering the XP computers now, just wait until you make everyone an admin.

Most applications that use Windows Installer technology (MSI) allow administrative installations to be performed per _machine_. There should be no need to have to install for each user. We build a base image with Symantec Ghost which can then be deployed on any computer for any one of the several hundred users in our organization. All applications work just fine.

Clip art may be included as part of an administrative installation of Office.

Printers are profile specific and therefore must be installed per user. A simple script may be called from the registry, StartUp menu or logon script to install printers for users.

If you insist on granting administrative priviledges to all users, I'd suggest adding Domain Users to the Local Administrators group when you build the computer and join your domain.

 

[EM64T]

Well, I don't have to make everyone admin if I can do these things with normal users. I guess it's just very frusterating for me trying to figure this out, I've been using Windows 98SE in the network for years, and XP handles things very differently.

The problem with installing programs for each user is that the majority of the programs I'm using are educational applications, and many of them don't use MSI, therefore I have to go in and give everyone complete access to Program Files in order for the programs to work (saving files, etc.).

I don't understand this:

"Clip art may be included as part of an administrative installation of Office."

I installed Office as an admin, and chose to install *all* clipart, and it works fine...but only for the administrator. If I login as another user, it wants me to install the clipart again.

Thanks for the info about the printers....I searched the forums and found some examples for scripts that will do the job for me. I appreciate it.

 

[wolluf]

I don't understand what you're getting either. I've installed a whole raft of software on several school suites. Users are local Power Users (because some of the older software won't run properly unless they are, otherwise they'd just be users) - but none of it needs installing for everyone (Office apps ask for confirmation of user name/initials on first use by new user..)

 

[Xemus]

Is it nessicary to have individual accounts for each user? While not the best idea in terms of security, most schools/colleges use a "student" account that is able to log on to all machines and accesses everything the same way. Makes user management alot easier in this type of scenario.

MCSE, A+

 

[EM64T]

"Is it nessicary to have individual accounts for each user? While not the best idea in terms of security, most schools/colleges use a "student" account that is able to log on to all machines and accesses everything the same way. Makes user management alot easier in this type of scenario."

I actually have two accounts setup like that, but I can't have it for the whole school because each student has their profiles stored on the NT server...that way they can save files to their directories on the server (such as stories they've written, etc.) and retrieve them from any other machine they login to.

"I don't understand what you're getting either. I've installed a whole raft of software on several school suites. Users are local Power Users (because some of the older software won't run properly unless they are, otherwise they'd just be users) - but none of it needs installing for everyone (Office apps ask for confirmation of user name/initials on first use by new user..)"

How can you make each user that logs into the machine a power user? It's probably because the kids that login to each machine on my network have no particular access rights, just the very basics.

 

[wolluf]

If you add the domain group. 'Domain Users' to the local group 'Power Users' on each machine (if you've lots of machines, you can use something like psexec - part of pstools freeware from

http://www.sysinternals.com

- in a batch file to run net localgroup on each machine to do this (either using a for statement with list of machines as input to it, or just multiple edit the same command line changing name of machine to run on), all domain users are automatically local power users.