Lotus30306
asked on
Rolling out changes to PCs
I need to be able to roll out a home page change and ODBC change to 300 of my networked PC on a daily basis in case a user changes those settings (home page in IE and ODBC change in control panel).
Yes, I could lock the PCs down by not having the users be admins but that is too much trouble and would never get approved (users rule here and no way we can take admin away from them).
The above could probably be accomplished with a script command but we might want to roll apps out in the future and I believe all of the below do that.
All are on Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I have looked at:
Inodes
Netinstall
Admin studio
Can someone suggest which is the best product? I hear netinstall is not as good as inodes but will be in a few months. Or, does anything beat all of the above for roll-outs?
Thanks!
Yes, I could lock the PCs down by not having the users be admins but that is too much trouble and would never get approved (users rule here and no way we can take admin away from them).
The above could probably be accomplished with a script command but we might want to roll apps out in the future and I believe all of the below do that.
All are on Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I have looked at:
Inodes
Netinstall
Admin studio
Can someone suggest which is the best product? I hear netinstall is not as good as inodes but will be in a few months. Or, does anything beat all of the above for roll-outs?
Thanks!
If you are going to change it daily anyway why not set home page with a GPO? - you can also roll out software too - Best thing is you already own it! That way you can still give your users admin rights on the machine.
ASKER
What is a GPO and where can I find out more about it? We don't use Active Directory so I am not sure if that affects our choices.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Sorry - assumed you were using active directory.
ASKER
No problem, anyone else have any ideas how to roll out changes to the home page and ODBC? Thanks!
ASKER
Let's change the question around and ask if there is command I can put in the login script which changes a user's home page without any user input? All users are admin on their machines. Thanks!
I would try to change the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE \MICROSOFT \INTERNET EXPLORER\MAIN\Start Page.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=245031
http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/40714/40714.html
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=245031
http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/40714/40714.html
ASKER
Good idea. Do you know the command to do this from the command line? I have some Windows 2000 PCs and some Windows XP Pro machines.
links should tell you
ASKER
Looked in there but can not find it. I am upping the point value to 500 for the one line command to change my homepage in IE (on W2K or WINXP) to www.cnn.com
Thanks!
Thanks!
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Add this line of code to your batch file to call the .vbs where ever you save it
cscript <network path\filename.vbs>
cscript <network path\filename.vbs>
ASKER
Works great but Norton asks me if I want to run this script. I can't have the users complain about the question after each startup.
Is there anyway to do this in a batch file without a visual basic script?
p.s. I am giving you some points on this one anyway since it does work. :)
Is there anyway to do this in a batch file without a visual basic script?
p.s. I am giving you some points on this one anyway since it does work. :)
add the line to call the script via a batch file
cscript <network path\filename.vbs>
cscript <network path\filename.vbs>
ASKER
Called it from a batch file with cscript and Norton still catches it. Any other ideas?
Can you tweak norton settings to allow this script? I use Trend Micro and
it runs like a champ : )
it runs like a champ : )