Topic: Windows Environment Control

[AT]

I need to control the windows environment of the Windows Client PCs connected to the SME. Give standard desktop image, disable the control panel access to users etc. all this thru the SME I have. Anyone?

[Bob Todd]

read up on the windows policy editor and user profiles. I used to do this from Mac servers by creating a shared area with all necessary files in it and then running a registry file on each client to tell it where to find the files at login.

[Bill Pflaumer]

AT,
Since you do not have a w2k domain controller, you will need to run the local group policy on each workstation (big task). Several things must be setup on each workstation first. 1. Must be NTFS file system. 2. Simple Sharing turned off (go to folder options,view,unclick SIMPLE SHARING) and under same location, click "show hidden files and folders". It turns out I am trying the same thing for a friend who is running a peer 2 peer network.

We can work on this together and report results. A word of CAUTION. YOU MUST experiment on a lab PC and read all you can, because you can turn your PC into a paper weight if you lock it down too hard. I read the following article and have played with poledit on w98 and NT4 Terminal server, so I do have experience with policies and profiles. The article is not working 100%, but it could be me. The understandings of the article is : The admin of the workstation does not have read permissions to the 'grouppolicy' folder, but the USERs of the workstation do, therefore the admin account will NOT be affected by the policy setup on the WKStation but the users will.

GOTO

http://www.theeldergeek.com/gp04.htm


Bill

[Bill Pflaumer]

AT,
For some reason I assumed the client PCs were XP-PRO, what is th OS of the client PCs ?

Bill

[Michiel]

I'm no MS expert, but can't you just create a policy file with poledit and save it as \yourserver\netlogon\ntconfig.pol?

See http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-02/samba_03.html

[Bill Pflaumer]

There is no poledit it XP Pro, which I assume to be AT's OS, but if it is 98 poledit can be used but you must tell poledit to where to find the .pol file. It not hard to figure out, but at the same time it is not as easy as it appears.


bill

[AT]

The windows environment we want to control from/thru the SME server. The Client PCs are a mix of Windows Client OSs that is Windows 98/ME/2000/XP on the network with one SME server.

These computers need to be managed and maintained from the SME 5.5 especially the environment control. I guess we need to alter the Login Script that will govern the user desktop thru his/her login.

[Michiel]

Clearly you didn't read the link I posted earlier. It explaines it in very simple words.

You can find poledit on any Windows NT server disk (/clients/srvtools/winnt/i386) or download it from the microsoft website (it's included in the free Office Resource Kit at http://www.microsoft.com/office/project/prk/2000/appndx/toolbox.htm#orktools)

An excellent step-by-step tutorial can be found on the samba website at http://de.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.html#id2935906

See in particular chapter 23, but the rest is also worth reading. You really will have to do some studying and experimenting, but it's worth the effort.

Michiel