Power button

[chrbb]

I've just taken delivery of some new desktops, first batch of windows 7 desktops. We've got windows 7 laptops in a trolley.

I want to change the power button from 'shut down' to 'log off' on the desktops as the children can't seem to work out how to log off. But I want to keep 'shut down' on the laptops as the are used by a class then shut down and put away. I've found a gpo to change it to log off in the user configuration but only want it to apply to the desktops not the users as that would affect the laptops when used by children. Or would it?

[glennda]

Apply the GPO to different computer ou's (assuming Vanilla windows) then enable user group policy loopback processing or something similar.

I.e apply shutdown gpo to computers/computers ou

Apply Loggoff to computers/laptops ou

EDIT: You can apply user configs but only on specified ous by doing this.

[chrbb]

Any chance of a dummies guide to loopback processing, when I did it before it didn't work.

[glennda]

Ok.

So if you have OU structure of

Computers with two ou's on it below for ease of explanation.
One being Laptops and one being workstations.

Create a New GPO called "Computer - Change Shutdown to Logoff" (i put computer in front of all my GPO's but name how you like) and put it on Workstations.

On the GPO enable the setting comp config/policies/admin templates/system/group policy then User Group Policy Lookback Processing Mode plus the change the log off button setting it should work

any problems post back

[3s-gtech]

Could you do this with wmi filtering too - filtering by a variable on the desktops so the policy only applies to them.

[chrbb]

Did it using loopback, power button changed to log off except ............. as domain admin I lost all my admin rights, couldn't edit registry etc. Is that because I used merge? I disabled the loopback setting and everything reverted to normal. Would replace have been the option to use?

[srochford]

Could you do this with wmi filtering too - filtering by a variable on the desktops so the policy only applies to them.

Yes and if you only have a limited number of laptop models then this is probably the easiest way to go. If you have all sorts of different models then getting a WMI filter which identifies a generic "desktop" or "laptop" is near impossible (there are endless threads elsewhere saying "how can I use WMI to identify laptops/desktops")