User logins, home directories and roaming profiles. 5

[Earkus]

I have been working at a company for quite awhile and they have never logged onto the domain. I finally convinced them it was more secure, efficient and had better control. Well, now I have been tasked to set it up. We have a pdc and bdc's. I have looked on the net, in books and I still can't get a definitive answer or example of how to create a user profile path, write a login script, apply a Home directory or make it all so that users if need be can roam to another machine and keep working if there machine crashes hard. We want to be able to have people save there files to a drive on the domain, be able to share them with each other by groups so we can back it all up nice and pretty. Does anyone out there know how or where I need to go to get examples so I can modify and make them mine? We are using NT 4.0 SP6 and Win9x machines as clients. We also have an Exchange 5.5 server with SP4. Thank you in advance.

 

[ashleym]

I was never even able to get a straight answer out of M$ about roaming profiles under NT, however it is very easy to do in Windows 2000. I realize this is not what you want to hear, but perhaps its time to upgrade the workstations to 2000 pro and your PDC to 2000 server.

AM

 

[SeanCStew]

Hello Earkus

I currently run a network with domains and roming profiles, let me get all the info compiled and I will get all the info on how to set up your profiles and shares.

 

[Earkus]

First of all thank you ashleym for responding. Yes we are in the process of doing the upgrade to 2000 Server and the client side will be XP PRO. It will be a bit before that is implemented tho. I know people must be out there cringeing on that one, but we have always tried to incorporate the newest technologies here. Sometimes it takes a bit, we are somewhat cautious but also like to try and stay on top of the game. We are getting there. Anyway SeanCStew, I also thank you for responding and look forward to all the info that you are going to compile. Thank you both.

 

[Dan1976]

I don't have the time to compile all the info you will need, but I've done wonders with the Kixtart scripting language. it very easy to learn and use. We currently use it to map all of our group / home / network drives depending on the groups the user is a member of. If a users' machine crashes, it doesn't matter. They simply log on to another machine and their drive mappings follow them. The best thing about kixtart is it's free. You can get it at

HTTP://www.kixtart.org

along with some sample scripts to get you started.

The roaming profiles would be nice, but we've never implemented them, so I'm not much help there.

Good luck.

 

[ashleym]

If you are moving to XP pro on the desktop that you will be delighted to know that romaing profiles work the same way and with the same ease as they do if you are using Win2k pro on the desktop. Bare in mind though that the profiles can take up a lot of space (over 1 gig per profile)on the server, so if you have a lot of roaming users you will need to have adequate disk space on the server. You didn't say how long it will be before you transition to XP pro on the desktop so you have to decide whether or not to invest to the time to get roaming profiles working in your existing environment or whether to wait.

AM

 

[Earkus]

I again wanted to thank everyone that has replyed to my post. Thank you for all of your help and Dan1976 I will definetly be downloading kixstart. Thanks again.

 

[polymath5]

One of the greatest scripting timesavers I have ever come accross is Scriptlogic

http://www.scriptlogic.com

It does some amazing things using Kix. Sounds like it's perfect for you. Anyone I've recommended it to, bought it. It's not expensive for what it does. It has a 30 day trial.

Seriously, give it a look!

 

[Guest_imported]

Try here for a good overview:

http://www.techadvice.com/nt40/R/RoamingProfiles.htm

This should also give you a bit of a wider scope:

http://is-it-true.org/nt/atips/index.shtml

For you 9x machines profiles:

http://www.inetintl.com/docs/s27.htm

or general info:

http://www.meadowh.force9.co.uk/nt4.htm

Any further questions drop me a line...
I know how hard it can be to find a helpful guide that won't flame you..

email: Gaulz@hotmail.com

don't forget about policies....

 

[Earkus]

Again, thank you all for you time. I do appreciate it. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. Gotta go, got lots to read.

 

[egolds]

The Windows NT Network Administration guide covers this fairly well (If you can still find the 4.0 version). The only caveat off the top of my head I can think of is that Windows 95/98 and NT/2000 profiles are incompatable. I assume the same holds true for XP Pro so as you implement users will need to have either an XP profile or a 9x profile.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Try this FAQ faq48-990

If you need any more info, I've bought the T-shirt a few times on this one... CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk