Quick Question (Desktop Build)

[Gavinc]

I am 99.9% finished in making a desktop build for Business Studies etc ...

 

But I don't want to get caught out with a couple of things, I would be grateful for a little advice.

 

For example Microsoft Office, when a "pupil" account log's onto the desktop it flashes up with a box with there login name, click ok to proceed, this is fine not a major problem but for example Spell Checker, it ask's every individual to install it when they run it for the first time, altho i have done this as local admin, should i be putting this into "all users" folder whilst logged in as admin?

 

Pupils log in and they get US Keyboard setting's but when I log in as local admin I get UK settings, should i copy something to all users?

 

When pupil's log in, they go "file, save as" it defaults to "My Documents" but they do not have access to the local machine, they save it on there home drive "H: Drive" can i set this to default save to the H: Drive?

 

Forgot to say, It's XP machines

(might be in the wrong section here but I'm sure it's something to do with all users folder and probably really silly questions.

[powdarrmonkey]

Ok, two distinct queries here:

 

How comfortable are you with the registry? Log in as a user and run all the setup stuff you want for Office, then export the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office key. Then import it into default user's profile thus:

 

1. choose a name, like 'temp' and replace all references to HKEY_CURRENT_USER in the exported file to be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\temp

2. fire up regedit and load the default user's ntuser.dat as an open hive in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (on the file menu) and name it the same as you did in the exported file ('temp'). So you now have a tree HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\temp\Software etc.

3. run the exported reg file to merge it into the default user's hive

4. always remember to unload the temp hive again when you're done.

 

Now a new profile based on default user will get the settings you've merged in. The usual registry editing precautions apply.

 

You can do the same with the keyboard layout I think, but I don't remember the key name off the top of my head.

 

As far as my documents goes, if you are in a Windows Server domain you can use group policy to redirect it to the user's home drive. You can then scrub drive H: altogether, mapped drives are just ugly. If you've just got standalone machines you can get the same effect with some more registry trickery, but we'll cross that one when you come to it

[richardp]

Hi, it sounds to me like you are not updating the "default user" profile within "Documents and Settings". When the user logs in for the first time their profile is created from the "Default User" profile folder. You need to create a new one and copy it to the folder. Do the following and it should get you further forward, I am doing this from memory as I am using a Mac at the moment so I may not be spot on with the names of things etc...

 

Install the software as administrator (local or domain) then login to the PC as an account on the domain setup with the same settings as your normal user account. Run all the software you have installed so that it does all the prompting etc... and configure it as you want. Then restart the PC and login as the administrator account. Go to the control panel and run the "System" control and go to the "Advanced" tab. Go to the "Profiles" tab and highlight the profile of the account you used. Click on the "Copy to" option browse to the "Default User" folder (make sure you have set the admin account to view hidden files and folders before this) and select it, then set the permissions to "Everyone".

 

As I said this should sort things out however there are still some programs that seem to require "My Documents" as the default. Some need to have their ini file (if they have one) edited. You could always redirect the "My Documents" folder to a D: drive partition (if you have one) or to a network share etc...

[powdarrmonkey]

Hmm, yes that would be much easier I've had a long day coding, my brain's lost its elastic...