multiple wallpapers depending if logged online or offline

[ryan_powell]

is it possible to assign two wallpapers to a users depending if they're logged onto their laptop at home or online at school. We use the offline files so that staff can log on at home, work and then sychronise when they get back.

 

We use the GP to assign a global wallpaper to all users when at schoo. But is there a policy or something similar we can do for if the laptop is offline to display another wallpaper.

 

Hope this makes sense. Thanks?

[plexer]

Why?

 

Surely it makes no difference to them what their wallpaper looks like at home?

 

Ben

[pete]

presumably to remind them that they are logged on at home and they don't have access to network drives etc?

 

A script that checks for connectivity to a server and then sets the wallpaper appropriately using bginfo, depending on the result?

[plexer]

But they will have access to them with offline files, especially their home drive but also any other you assign which could also be a public folder.

 

All my staff laptops are setup with offline files for their home drive and this has never been a problem.

 

Ben

[ryan_powell]

At the moment when at home we get silly staff members saving work to the local c drive or their local desktop as opposed to my docs. Only my docs is synchronised to save time. The plan is (as pete guessed) is to remind them where to save their work by having a wallpaper display the appropriate instructions.

 

How can i set a script to change wallaper depending upon server connectivity? Any examples?

 

Thanks

[plexer]

If you have my documents redirected to their home drive (h:) or whatever it is and offline files enabled then saving to my documents while away from the network saves to their offline files folder which is then synced next time they log on so no problems.

 

Ben

[ryan_powell]

Yea thats what we want the staff to do, but the clever people save to their desktops or the local c drive of the laptop which aren't synchronised when they get back into school. The idea behind the wallpaper is for it to kick in when they're at home to remind them to save in my docs or risk losing their work.

[Geoff]

why do they have access to the local c drive? You should lock the machines down so they can't do that.

 

You can redirect/use offline files on their Desktop too. That's what I do here.

[ITWombat]

On related question does anyone also allow offline files on desktops e.g. for extra fault tolerance. Laptops users at my school also do alot of hot desking with implications for version conflicts.

[plexer]

I redirect the users desktop to a folder called desktop in their h: so that is also available offline.

 

ITWombat: Nope we don't

 

Ben

[Geoff]

Other than the teachers laptop situation, I find Offline Files aren't worth the hassle

[GrumbleDook]

Same here ... that is why we use a local account for home (with full admin rights) and a locked down domain account ... combine that with a folder on c: and getting staff / students to back up essential work (not music etc) and it generally works.

[ITWombat]

Unless implementing LUA e.g. to avoid surfing as admin then there is little advantage in locking the domain account. Once you have local admin then you can do anything that shouldn't

[plexer]

What I am now planning on doing is giving them a local admin (power user) account so that they can install drivers etc... for printers and add their broadband hardware or whatever but still make them use their domain offline account which is locked down to work offline.

 

I figure this will make them use the admin rights only when needed rather than all the time.

 

We are switching over to Phoenix E1 as our school mis system in the new year and it is all web based and the biggest threat to it is staff inadvertenly becoming infected with a keylogger or other malware.

 

I know this could still happen when they are logged on as their admin user but more unlikely that if I make their domain account a member of the local administrators group.

 

Thoughts?

 

Ben

[GrumbleDook]

Unless implementing LUA e.g. to avoid surfing as admin then there is little advantage in locking the domain account. Once you have local admin then you can do anything that shouldn't

 

Apart from the fact that they do not pick up the proxy if logged on locally ... and cannot get out onto the internet ... and if they do pick up the proxy then they have to authenticate using domain credentials ... we get them coming and going.

 

Irregardless of whether they are logged on locally or the domain in school it tried to talk to the AV manager and anti-spyware manager for updates / checks ... so we get rid of P2P software, check what software they have installed and can see what they have been up to via the tracking cookies.

 

Just as in the locking computers thread ... getting the users to take responsibility is better than relying on a technical solution. If something goes wrong with their laptop it can only really have been caused by them in one way or another ... we just try to make sure we take reasonable safeguards so that it will not cock-up other things on the network.