Mandatory Profiles

[jcollings]

Hi folks

 

Looking at changing all our pupils to mandatory profiles in the new year. They currently use roamaing profiles with appdata, desktop etc redirected to network locations.

 

Currently when a student saves favourites, sets up site details in Dreamweaver, custom dictionaries this is all saved in their profile folder on the network (usually Appdata).

 

My question is how does all this work with manadatory profiles?

 

Thanks

[ChrisH]

Theres an extensive write up on profiles in the edugeek wiki. If you are wanting them to have their own settings then you are going to have to redirect application data. Beware of the problems this causes with internet seetings being in the same GPO.

I just use a default profile on the netlogon share. For Dream Weaver for example I create a my webiste folder in their home folder. This is checked when they logon. If delted its recreated. I then have the profile to map to z:\my website and when they open Dreamweaver their site is there.

You may also be interested in something called flex profiles as well.

[maniac]

http://edugeekwiki.rm-charlton.net/index.php/Mandatory_Profiles

 

Is the wiki link.

 

There's also numerous threads discussing this.

 

It's possible to set the favourites to be in their home directory by editing the location manually in the policy. H:\favourites is mine. Custom dictionaries I've never looked into, they just get the default one. Their dreamweaver default folder is set in a simelar way, Dreamweaver looks at h:\Website by default on my machines.

 

Most other programs that save settings to their profile can be adjusted with registry edits, or by changing the preferences within the program.

 

Initially if they've been used to roaming profiles you'll get a lot of compalints from your students, as they won't be able to re-arrange their icons, or save custom tool bars in word etc. but they soon get used to it.

 

Mike.

[InTheDark]

We use "Super" Mandatory Profiles, also redirecting:

Application Data to \\server-name\%username%\Application Data

A customised desktop that is created each time a user logs on, to \\server-name\%username%\Desktop

My documents to \\server-name\%username%\My Documents

A standard Start Menu to \\server-name\student start menu

 

I can't remember which parts, but don't forget that only certain parts of a users profile is stored in a Mandatory Profile.

 

Our students are still able to move their icons around on their desktops. We use BGINFO to display user, pc and available printer details onto a users desktop.

 

We got round the Favourites issue by writing our own .ADM file as below:

 

CLASS USER

 

CATEGORY "School Modifications"

 

POLICY "Mandatory Profile Favorites Location"

 

KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"

PART "Recommended location is \\server\%username%\My Documents\Favorites" TEXT

END PART

PART "Location of Favorites folder?" EDITTEXT REQUIRED EXPANDABLETEXT

VALUENAME "Favorites"

END PART

END POLICY

END CATEGORY

 

Graham

[barendw]

Hi Graham,

 

This is exactly what I am looking for!

 

Please can you advise how to impliment the custom ADM on my windows 2003 server.

 

Many thanks.

 

B

[cookie_monster]

Hi all, I was folowing ths thread and this link http://edugeekwiki.rm-charlton.net/index.php/Mandatory_Profiles is dead. Has it been moved.

 

Thanks.

[FN-GM]

Hi all, I was folowing ths thread and this link http://edugeekwiki.rm-charlton.net/index.php/Mandatory_Profiles is dead. Has it been moved.

 

Thanks.

 

new link: http://www.edugeek.net/wiki/index.php/Mandatory_Profiles