Multiple students logging on to XP and 2k boxes

By default domain users are added to the restricted users local group on the pc so they are treated as restricted users.

DVation191,

Do you know of any way to do this without the use of an outside software package?  I've been looking through Roaming Profiles, but I am unsure if this is what I am looking for.  Basically, I want an exact replica of the desktop for every student user that logs in... much like how Windows 98 doesn't have multiple users, and no matter who logged in, all applications were set up and ready for use..  Is there some way to disable Windows XP from using local users and only use the domain user accounts when student log in?

luv2smile,

Thank you for that.  That is comforting to know that I will not have to worry about creating user accounts for each and every 2000+ student accounts that we are going to be setting up.  =)

Thanks,
 digitalsatori

You don't want to use roaming profiles if you don't need to do so in my opinion.  Basically, use Windows 2003 Active Directory. Join all the workstations to the domain.  If a user has a domain account then they are able to log in to any workstation as a domain user. To get Office deployed, use the Microsoft Office Resource Kit and read the section on the custom installation wizard.  There are two methods of deploying Office, either will work for your purposes.  You'll be creating a custom transform for Office (a .MST file).  Use Group Policy to deploy office to make life easy on yourself.  You can go the other route and manually deploy the setup.exe if you don't have high speed connectivity between the file server and the workstation.  Read the resource guide either way for best practice.

To get all the desktops to look the same, create a single desktop image for each type of computer (if you moderately standardized) then sysprep the machines and deploy with an imaging software such as ghost.  99% of the desktop settings can then be set using Group Policy and ADM files from Microsoft.

there are easier ways to do all this but none cheaper than what MS gives you out of the box.  

Xixxy
 

Xixxy,

Thank you for your response.  Using the Deployment for Office would help with that particular software package, however we do have other installations in which we run in to the same problem.

Basically, what I want is for XP to act more like a 98 machine.  In Windows 98, no matter who logged in the same settings were static for each user.  Outlook pointed to a specific account, My Documents pointed to one specific place.  If an application was installed and set up (Office, for example), it was available for any user that logged in without having to redo a "setup" or "configuration".  That's how I would like our computers to run when we go with giving students accounts on our domain.

Thanks,
digitalsatori