Shared Desktops - Laptops

[Iain.Faulkner]

Hi,

 

Didn't want to hijack the other thread regarding shared desktops so thought I'd best create my own.

 

We use shared desktops and start menus which are administered through GPO. Essentially we have a seperate GPO for teaching staff, admin staff and students and as a result the GPO's are user based.

 

Our teaching staff are all allocated a school laptop, however, as a result of the shared desktop their laptops pick up the desktops as set by the GPO. This isn't ideal as obviously once the laptops are being used offline, the shortcuts and start menu no longer function correctly. Is it possible to setup a gpo which will overwrite the user based policy so that we can allow teaching staff to setup their own personalised desktop on their laptops? Has anyone successfully achieved this?

 

Hope this makes sense.

 

Many thanks

 

Iain

[Brpilot99]

Quick question ... how do the staff logon to the laptop when its offline? ie not connected to the domain ..

[tosh74]

@Iain. Have a look at loopback policy processing for your staff laptops. IF you set this to replace then you should be able to allow your staff to customise their desktops without affecting their desktop lock downs.

@BRpilot. They staff should have a cached profile on the local hard disk. If the laptop cannot contact a DC it will proceed to logon the staff with the local copy of their profile.

[Iain.Faulkner]

Absolutely spot on Tosh with regards local profiles :-)

 

Thanks for the suggestion as well, I'll take a look.

[Brpilot99]

@Iain. Have a look at loopback policy processing for your staff laptops. IF you set this to replace then you should be able to allow your staff to customise their desktops without affecting their desktop lock downs.

@BRpilot. They staff should have a cached profile on the local hard disk. If the laptop cannot contact a DC it will proceed to logon the staff with the local copy of their profile.

 

Yes thats true if profiles are being used ... but not if the desktop is being controlled by gpo desktop redirection

[Richie1972]

We switched off offline files on our network and, for all staff needing laptops, we just create a local user for them (most of them rarely bring their laptops back for months or years).

They know to log on at home with the local account and use their network account in school