Win2k Profiles

Well, pretty simple question for you guys. I work with about 200 win2k machines and have major issues with profiles on a regular basis. Firstly, can I disable profiles somehow? Microsoft's website says nothing about it. Secondly, the articles I've found on copying profiles to the default user aren't all that great. Anyone know of a good one? Perhaps one that gives information on deleting profile specific data? Thanks in advance.

 

If you are talking about local profiles, domains and how to set a default that will replicate to new users logging on -

Log on as an administrator - best probably to create a new local user called Settings or something just for this and make it an admin.

Make sure none of the other profiles that aren't done to suit you have information that needs to be saved because you are going to delete them.

1. Start~Settings~Control Panel~System~User Profle Tab
2. Delete all regular user profiles except the one that you loged on with and any others you want to leave as is. Once done click ok and close out of Control Panel.
3. Set up your Settings profile the way you want everyone's to look. This inculdes back grounds, Favorites, etc.
4. Once you have the profile set the way you want it Start~Settings~Control Panel~Folder Options~View Tab, select "show hidden files and folders:, click OK and close out of folder options
5. Now Start~Settings~Control Panel~System~User Profile Tab
6. Select your Settings profile then Copy To~Browse~C:\documents and settings\default User and OK
7. Under the permitted to use Click Change
8. Select the domain group you wish to allow access (probably Everyone) and OK
9. Yes to accept the deletion of the Old Profile

Now when anyone new signs on it will create a new profile using the default you just copied.

 

Thanks, that's part of what I was looking for. I'm also curious if there is a way to force user.dat registry value changes easily to all users of a machine. Our loadout changes frequently, and so we run across many profile issues. It's been difficult to load software not specifically written for a WinNT platform onto these machines because it has to be loaded for each individual user. The default profile is great, so long as the machine has not been utilized and customized yet.

 

I'd think you could do it with a logon script .reg file that contains any universal changes you want applied. That way, user logs on, reg tweaks get made.

Not tried this and I may be missing something though.

If you are looking to keep all user profiles the same, having the default user account set to suit you and then deleting the user's ntuser.dat file should cause a load from the default ntuser.dat at next logon. Again, I think this would work.

Love to see comments from some of the seriously techie folks on here though. This should be a common enough need that somebody built a nice utility for it.

 

Thanks for the help Newt. I was hoping there was a utility to propagate the default profile to all others in use. With several users per machine, backing up their profiles and recreating them could become a bit of a task, and I'd rather avoid that if possible. Thanks again.