show clock in MFXP for all users

[nix45]

How can you force the clock to show for all users in MetaFrameXP (FR3/SP3) on Windows 2000 (SP4)? Also, we have users in different time zones, so we need the clock to reflect the proper time zone. Users connect from thin clients mostly.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[CaptainHaddock]

With all the respect....but why would you????
This means that every minute an (in my opinion) an unnecessary screen-update is done to all your active clients

create a new user modify that user's desktop and copy their profile to the default user (control panel / system / Advanced / User Profiles / Settings, then remove or rename the end users profile and let them create a new one by loggin in (be sure to save any user data from the original profile). Then the time will be visible for them.

 

[nix45]

Thanks for your reply. We have about 300 users (using roaming profiles) across 25 remote offices. Deleting all of their profiles and re-creating them isn't a feasible solution. I was hoping that there was a policy that I can push out to force the desktop to show the clock.

I thought about the bandwidth issues with this, but how much traffic can this really cause? Moving the mouse cursor requires more bandwidth than the minute changing on the clock I would think.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[DDILL]

nix45,
You are correct. The time change would be minimal as it will not refresh the entire screen, just the change. I would suggest you use regmon from sysinternals, monitor changing the setting, and find the reg key that was modified. Then create a local policy using poledit for the users group. Open the .pol file in the regedt32 and set the appropriate key under that user group key. This will force the key to be set for users.
Another way to set the key would be in the login script. You could use the REG.exe util to set the key as well. Let me know if you have trouble I will post again or help find the specific key.
Have Fun...

 

[nix45]

Isn't poledit used for NT4 servers? I'm running Win2K. If I could show the clock by simply editing a reg key when the user logs in, that would work great, but I just found this doc below, which says that this can't be done that easy.

http://www.axcentsolutions.com/technical/settaskbaroptions.asp

I'll give this vbs script a try and see what happens. Has anybody used this before?

Also, does anybody know the registry key that will allow you to force showing the clock for the default user profile? This will help with new users in the future.


Thanks,
Chris

 

[DDILL]

Use this link for the key:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/970/.

The key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\HideClock=0

 

[DDILL]

OOPS..
I gave you info for WinXP. The link you posted shows the key is HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Stuckrects2

 

[nix45]

Thanks guys, I got it working using the vbs script from this link...

http://www.axcentsolutions.com/technical/settaskbaroptions.asp

I'll watch it for a week and see if I there is any noticable difference in performance with the clock showing for about 100 users. I've read that this puts a lot of overhead on the box, but I just don't see how it would because moving the mouse cursor has to be more intensive than changing the time on the clock, I would think?