Domain-Wide Profiles SBS 2003

[sanity1977]

Hi

I was looking at how the default user profiles work and was interested in trying to set one up that was domain wide so that if someone logs into a new workstation they receive a common wallpaper and settings are set at a standard initially. I believe this can be done as a domain wide feature. I know how to create a new default user profile and from what I have read if I stick this profile in the NETLOGON share on the SBS 2003 server then when a person logs on to any workstation that hasn't logged on before it should pull the profile from the share or update the Default User profile on the workstation from this share at the very least.

I have a "Default User" profile in the NETLOGON share but it just doesn't seem to use it when I try this. I have made sure that the user profile does not allready exist on the workstation I am trying it with and have also confirmed it doesn't exist in the registry under the HKLM/Software/Microsoft/WindowsNT/CurrentVersion/ProfileList. Has anyone had this working? I have checked the security on the NETLOGON folder and the Default User profile inside that and it appears to be allowing read and modify access to Authenticated Users. It just seems as tho it will only user the default user on the local machine. I guess I could probably synchronize this folder with every machine but it just doesn't seem like it should have to be done that way and I probably wouldn't even worry about it if it came to that.

Any pointers/help would be greatly appreciated.

[cluberti]

Assuming that you have configured a profile on a local machine, copied it, set permissions to "EVERYONE" on the copied profile folder (from a domain workstation or member server, NOT a DC), renamed the folder to "Default User", then copied that folder up to the \\domain.tld\Netlogon share, it should work. You may want to try and configure userenv logging to see if that log shows you why it isn't working (it should definitely work):

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Value: UserEnvDebugLevel

Type: REG_DWORD

Radix: Hexadecimal

Data: 10002

(Reboot required)

[sanity1977]

Thanks for your reply cluberti ... I had another go at it and when I checked the permissions this time they were different. Perhaps I hadn't changed them correctly or something. Unsure ... but non the less it is mostly working with one exception. It doesn't appear to load the wallpaper. It just shows a blank wallpaper. Any ideas on this? I have tried putting it in different locations before copying the custom "Default User" I create. I figure that if the wallpaper image is stored in the My Pictures folder for my test user that should be sufficient right? Doesn't appear to be.

Is there a policy that may be set by default somewhere that blocks sending wallpapers accross the network maybe? Where would I get to that in SBS 2003?

[cluberti]

Well, wallpapers from network share locations work, and wallpapers from a default profile work, but it's best to place the wallpaper file somewhere other than the profile. First, make sure it's a bitmap (bmp) - other file types are supposed to work, but trust me, they're unreliable at best. Second, place the wallpaper file somewhere else on the machine where users will have read access, like the root of the Windows directory. That should solve your problems with the wallpaper. I'd doubt that the prohibition or problem is coming from group policy, but if it is, everything related to desktop wallpaper is under User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop and it's subfolders.