Windows XP local profiles

[stergios]

Dear all.

I have an Windows NT 4.0 Server infrastucture domain.

I have a computer lab that I want to set up with Windows XP.

The PCs are joined to the NT 4.0 domain and I have created a mandatory profile on one of my servers. This solution works. But, it is a single point of failure because if the server goes down then nobody can login.

Could you tell me if it is possible to set up a common user profile locally on hard drive c: that will be loaded (from c when a domain user logs in?

The best solution is to configure it locally (C: drive) and then assign to all domain user accounts the same local profile path (i.e. c:\config\profile) at the User Manager for Domains profile tab. Thus, whenever someone logs in, the Windows NT Server will instruct the domain account to use the profile from C:\config\profile. With this solution I avoid the single point of failure problem.

I tried to do it by creating a profile on the local drive c:. Then I configured the user profile path using User Manager for domains but whever I try to log in from a client PC using a specific domain account, it says that "the system can not find a roaming profile and will use a temporary one. There is problem with the permissions. The owner of the folder containing the folder on the local driver C: must be the DOMAIN administrator". Something like that.

Actually, if you can suggest another solution that it works it will be great.

My problem is: How can all domain user accounts that log on to the lab PC (that is joined to the domain) to get the same profile from the local hard disk c:

Thank you in advance.

 

[stergios]

Thank you for the response. Really helped me to clarify some things.
Ok. I will follow the procedure using server side mandatory profiles. Now, my problem is that I have 2 computer labs. I want every computer lab to have its own printer settings. I do not want the PCs on the 2nd lab to be able to print on the 1st lab. I have the idea of configuring a batch file that will copy the printers shortcuts from c:\config to c:\document and settings\userprofile\printhood. I plan to use the Windows Scheduler that will execute the script every time the user logs in. Any other ideas to suggest on the printer configuration problem? Thank you in advance.

 

[imung]

By default a user account (using XP) that join into domain will use local profiles unless you setup them to use roaming profile in Nt user manager.

If your server down, you can still login to your computer.
e.g:
- Your NT domain user : tulip
- Your NT domain : flowers

1. Go to Control Panel - User Accounts; add a new local user name: tulip (same as your domain user name).
2. In the domain text box enter your NT domain: flowers
3. Assign the priviledge for this user e.g: administrators, power users or standard users etc etc.

With this way, you will still be able to logon into domain: flowers as user: tulip whenever your network unavailable or your server down with the same user profile.

 

[imung]

For things like printers settings, share resources bla bla bla you can implement Login script instead of Windows scheduler (?)
Each time a user log-in the script will be executed.

There are various logon scripts: perl, vbs, batch file, kixtart etc etc.
If you use batch file, it is easy to use but very limited.
I use kixtart and it can deal with your "printers settings" matter.