Accessing domain users profile for troubleshooting an issue

[zillah]

Hi

In the domain environment (win2003 AD) and clients are XP prof, what would be the practical procedure if we want to trouble shoot a PC client if he/she has an issue with installing printer , sending an email , an error,,,etc

Although I have got the password for a local admin for all PCs clients, but I guess when to login to the client profile himself/herself rather than local admin to troubleshoot.

Yes when the client has already logged in we can do the work, but I prefer to do that after work (when employees knock off) it gives us more time and flexibility especially when we need more time .

Without knowing the password for a client (i.e. domain user) how can we troubleshoot his/her profile?

I am aware that we can reset his/her password, but this is not a practical solution I believe.

For instance I faced this issue today I accessed work network via VPN connection and I tried to log in to a PC client as local admin (not login to his/her profile because I do not know what is the password) and when I tried to add a shared printer to that PC it was added successfully to admin profile and I asked him to log in to his profile to test the printer if it was installed or not , he told me that he could not print ,,,,for me to check that and confirm what he is saying I guess I need to login to his profile ,,,,Doesn’t it ?

Thanks

[Oxygen]

i think this will help u in the printer issue

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307016/EN-US/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314486/EN-US/

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

i dont know why the printer wouldnt show up on his profile installed printers are user specific.

since the only person that has seen the printer inside the user profile is the user him/herself, ill point out the obvious and say it might be there but since the user said he "could not print" but didnt say something like "the printer doesn't appear in the list" he just may not be looking at the list. My users often "cant print" just because they have 'Send to Onenote', 'Microsoft Office Document Image Writer', 'Adobe PDF printer', etc cluttering up their dropdown list so even if the printer is installed on the machine, since it isnt set as the default (or doesnt appear at the top of the list) they say the "cant print" when in fact they just dont have a valid default printer set.

I say its more likely that you have a user error than a profile specific printer issue.

[MrJinje]

Hi

In the domain environment (win2003 AD) and clients are XP prof, what would be the practical procedure if we want to trouble shoot a PC client if he/she has an issue with installing printer , sending an email , an error,,,etc

Although I have got the password for a local admin for all PCs clients, but I guess when to login to the client profile himself/herself rather than local admin to troubleshoot.

Yes when the client has already logged in we can do the work, but I prefer to do that after work (when employees knock off) it gives us more time and flexibility especially when we need more time .

What we do is give the user a temporary password and tell them to leave their on computer overnight. After hours go into user account and reset users password and do our business. Once done we go back into user account and hit the "user must change password at next login" checkbox. User logs in the next day with the temporary password and changes it.

[zillah]

For instance I faced this issue today

Thanks guys for the inputs, I did not mean to dedicate this thread for the printer's problem (it was my mistake I should have stated that in my first thread) I mentioned the printer's issue as an example to one of couple problems that I have been experiencing with users domain.

What we do is give the user a temporary password and tell them to leave their on computer overnight. After hours go into user account and reset users password and do our business. Once done we go back into user account and hit the "user must change password at next login" checkbox. User logs in the next day with the temporary password and changes it.

This is what I was looking for.

Thanks for sharing your experience and helping out to save our of troubleshooting