Windows 7 - I've Given Up

[garethedmondson]

If you have 2008, (or is it 2008 R2?) with the GPO Preferences, then you can sort mapped drives out via GPO - no need for logon scripts

The LEA are running a 2003R2 server so no 2008 here at the moment. Still I have a W7 management machine running RSAT and they have an admx store on the server (the kind discussed by AngryTechnician in his blog) - so I can edit the GPOs.

There is a well documented issue with admins getting mapped drives. I've also sorted it for staff users - perhaps someone could send me their output for the mapping drive GPO - I know you can save them from within the GPO Editor. I could then take a look.

If anyone does have W7 working and tied down for staff and pupils I wouldn't mind looking at their GPOs in HTML format if they wouldn't mind sending them over.

Many thanks as always

Gareth

[Gatt]

If I remember, I'll export my GPOs to DHTMTL and send them over

[DaveP]

It certainly helps - we deploy it via a kix login script so it gets applied once all the GPO's have been applied...

This may seem like an odd question but we only user KIX to deploy printers at the moment and we should not need KIX for that come Windows 7. It took an age for us to get the KIX scripts for the printers just right. To give us a head start would you let us see what your KIX script to deploy your desktops looks like? Not sure if I will need it as, like I said desktops [for Students] works 'out of the box' Might help for my Staff desktops and and Start Menus though as none of that works.

[Gatt]

@DaveP - TBH, now we are on 2008 R2 & Win7 or KIX scripts are pretty basic now - mainly for BGInfo, but I'll send them over to you tomorrow...

[garethedmondson]

If I remember, I'll export my GPOs to DHTMTL and send them over

And that is why this community is so great. Don't worry I'll remind you ;-)

Many thanks

GJE

[garethedmondson]

@DaveP - TBH, now we are on 2008 R2 & Win7 or KIX scripts are pretty basic now - mainly for BGInfo, but I'll send them over to you tomorrow...

I've never looked at KIX scripts - are they something I should be looking at?

Gareth

[SYNACK]

I've never looked at KIX scripts - are they something I should be looking at?

Gareth

In my opinion, No. KIX scripts are a 3rd party form of script that requires an interpreter and although it is used on a bunch of networks you can do exactly the same stuff with a VBS script without having to add more dependencies and incompatibilities. The first thing I did to get rid of a bnch of issues when we went Vista from XP was rip out KIX and it solved 3/4 of the problems we were having instantly. I know there are newer versions that are compatible now but I preffer it to work out of the box without adding additional requirements.

[Arthur]

PowerShell and VBScripts are the way to go, along with Group Policy Preferences. Batch files and KiX scripts are so 2001.

[mac_shinobi]

PowerShell and VBScripts are the way to go, along with Group Policy Preferences. Batch files and KiX scripts are so 2001.

Not really tried powershell and have only done a very small amount of batch file stuff - mostly been vbscripts / wmi and the likes for me

[mac_shinobi]

I had a nightmare with printers and nearly decided to roll back to XP,

What issues did you have with printers and what did you do to resolve that ?

[jsnetman]

What issues did you have with printers and what did you do to resolve that ?

I had problems with client machines not downloading drivers, it was a combination of not picking the right drivers to start with and went to using the universal print driver for all our HP printers. But even then some needed the postscript driver and others needed the PCL driver. We also have about 8 HP 2600's (no print processor) which will not work shared from a 2008r2 server so they remain on a 2003 box and oddly work alright with the old driver, we also had to inject the said driver into the image as it would also not download from the 2003 box. Lots of tweaking with point and print restrictions and the other settings for printers in group policy finally solved all the problems.

[Gatt]

TBH, I have had no issues with KIX running on anything from win98 upwards..
I found it solved a swath of issues with XP
It was especially good at targetting drive mappings or backgrounds to specific AD groups without the need of seperate Group Policies

However, since Window 7 / 2008 / R2 and the introduction of GP preferences I find my KIX Scripts are almost redundant, though I still use them for BGInfo assignments and Papercut (Client Cahce)

We also use it as a way of informing the kids if they have been internet banned...

[Silverman]

Does anybody have an editted authui.dll file they could share to change the user account image from an empty frame to a desired logo.

I have tried editting many of the BMPs within this dll but all I have managed to do is change the colour of this empty frame.

Would be a massive help if somebody has changed this and could share.

Thanks.

[chrbb]

Aaaargh! didn't get the background sorted, spending loads of time making our ancient programs work.

[Gatt]

Does anybody have an editted authui.dll file they could share to change the user account image from an empty frame to a desired logo.

I have tried editting many of the BMPs within this dll but all I have managed to do is change the colour of this empty frame.

Would be a massive help if somebody has changed this and could share.

Thanks.

Doesn't that break the EULA?