standardising desktop

[pcoxwell]

This is probably a really easy one to solve but its thrown me so any advice or tips you can offer are greatly appreciated! Also, I am very new and inexperienced at using Small Business Server 2003 so the more detailed your response can be, the better for me! Thank you in advance

We have tried using roaming profiles with roaming desktops but aren't keen on this idea (it has given reduced functionality and also some remote-working staff are complaining of the slowness as the desktop profile is matched each time. So, what I am looking at as a possible solution is to have a standardised desktop used in conjuction with a roaming profile. My question is, how do I get one desktop layout setup on all office machines that is the default for all users. Would this need to be setup on each machine separatly or is there a way to cascade this from the server? Also, I was to give a selection of shortcuts on the desktop but disable users from being able to create their own and disable the ability to save to the desktop - is this possible? If so, how do I set this up? Also, I want to disable users from being able to alter their background settings - can this be done serverside through GPO or is this a machine specific setting?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Paul

 

[tfg13]

This link will help you with the GPO's. It is basically designed to help you configure any desktop environment that you want, and all from the GPO.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...45-8AA6-4775-9208-C681A7043292&displaylang=en

As far as incorporating roaming profiles in with some of these GPO's is really confusing. The point of roaming profiles is to have a desktop go with you from one station to another, however, you want to limit what is actually on the desktop. It sounds to me like you are looking for something like folder redirection, not roaming profiles. Take a look at this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...2003/all/deployguide/en-us/sdcbc_sto_tbzc.asp

 

[pcoxwell]

Thank you for your reply, I think that I have now established exactly what I am trying to do and would be grateful for any further assistance you are able to offer.

At present we use roaming profiles with roaming desktops (so that the users desktop is the same on each machine they log onto). What we now want to do is to maintain the roaming profiles but ditch the roaming profiles. Instead, we want to setup a default user desktop / work area that is the same for each user on each machine. This is based on the same principle of the roaming profile except that it doesnt roam but instead is local on each office machine.

Therefore, I would be grateful if you could help me answer the following:

How do I create this standard user desktop for each machine? Does it require to be setup on each machine or can it be cascaded centrally? This desktop will require a standardised background and desktop icons. I need to know how to disable the ability to save items to the desktop.

Also, I would like to automatically be able to map server drives onto the local machines, is this possible?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Paul

 

[5jgibbs]

well.. you may be able to setup a "default user" on each computer.. and keep it consistant.. so .. you would map the desktop to C:\documents and settings\user\desktop

this may work.. i know they do it on our novell network..

 

[pjcarmen]

You might want to look at mandatory profiles. Mando profiles are a bit like roaming profiles, difference is they can't be canged by the user.

I use those in an elementary school lab that I admin. Users can change the desktop and stuff all they want, once they log out, *poof* back to normal. If you ar elooking to keep the roaming profile functionality, this might not be an option for you though.

General Profile information:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../standard/proddocs/en-us/sag_UPconcepts_1.asp

Mando profile info:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...ocs/en-us/sag_UP_Create_Mandatory_Profile.asp

Hope it helps a bit

-P

^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
~Paul~
TechMonkey

 

[pcoxwell]

Thanks for all of the responses. I think I am going to set a default user profile on the machines so they all use the same look and feel. However, is there a way to set a GPO to install this onto all machines or does this have to be done manually?

 

[judel2]

Ok - I thin I can help on the lockdown for the desktops. Yes you can create a gp to disbale alot - check into it. For example to can prevent users from Add/Removing Software. Good luck