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Thanks everyone for the advice! I've ended up creating a new mandatory folder for the profiles, created a .v2 version, and now both XP and 7 are using these with only a few issues surrounding where the staff have access to the C:\ drive when saving work (word documents etc.) the software defaults to a local My Documents instead of the network area assigned to each member of staff. I'm going to go look for any solutions to this in the forums.

Alright, then I'll try pointing the user profile in AD to a .v2 profile and see how that works.

I'm having trouble getting staff users logged on to our schools new Windows 7 machines. Currently (on our winXP machines) users logon to a shared profile as managed through AD with the user profile paths all pointing to the same file. Write access to this profile is restricted. Our server is Windows Server 2008. Once a Windows 7 machine is added to the network and put on the domain any staff that logon are given a temporary profile that is deleted once logged off. I'm not sure where the issue lies, but this is not a simple "Go in and delete the profile" issue, because users do not have profiles there to delete. I have tried switching off temporary profiles through the default group policy, which just leaves users with a "Windows Profile Logon Service" error once their username/password is entered. Do I need to change something with our old shared profile to make it Windows 7 compliant? Are there other reasons why Windows 7 would not like our current setup? Once our users can logon I will then look into restricting access to the local machine, as our preferred way of working is to keep all the data on our server and backed up, users are given a home directory that is on a network drive. This is giving me a real headache since i'm replacing all our old WinXP machines with Win7 machines while trying to keep the setup the same. Thank you for any help.

Edit: Thanks K.C.Leblanc, answered my question before I even posted it I'm talking to Dell and Novatech now.

Best looking No-OS machine i've found was this: Acer Aspire M3900 Desktop - Desktops | Ebuyer.com

Hmm, thanks for the fast replies. I'm not sure now of the best route to take. If we buy machines with a version of windows installed, say Windows 7 Home Premium, can they be used in the school as-is? I don't know about educational licenses, since our machines are so old (2006) I don't think we're on any kind of agreement. The PCs I have in mind right now are from ebuyer and Misco, is that a bad idea? should we buy from someone who specializes in selling bulk PCs to education? and if so, who would you recommend? Thanks again.

Hello! I've referred to these forums countless times for help and I've always found something of use. I need some advice now that is specific to my school. We have an aging setup of 50 machines used by admin staff and teachers in classrooms. It's time to replace these old machines but the new machines I've shortlisted have no OS installed. Since the new machines are more powerful we want Windows 7 to go along with them. Can anyone recommend where I can find licenses / install media / everything I need to get Win 7 on 50 machines in a cost effective way? I'm not sure if this is done with a volume license or individual copies. I haven't had much experience with buying bulk software. Obviously our old machines are Win XP and the licenses from them are tied to the hardware, so they're of no use. Thanks in advance for your help!