Adding shortcuts and favorite for multiple users...

[vfanz22]

Hi all,
I hope someone here can help me. I work at a computer lab at a university and I've been assign to a pretty boring and repetitive task that I hope there is an easy way to do.

On 12 computers in the lab here with 15 different users profile, I'm asked to update the favorite folder and have all the profiles share the same favorite links for easy access to the students.

my question is, is there a way to add favorite files to one folder and then have all profiles be able to see it and access it? I've try using the All Users folder, but when I log on to other users it does not register.

Also I was wondering if there is a way to control IE so I can change all the homepage to the school site instead of login in individually and manually changing the internet options?

and I do have admin rights of course in case there are any doubts
Any help or suggestions is greatly appreciated!

VF

 

[tendrousbeastie]

You could change the favourites on all systems with a few MS-DOS batch files. For example, a file on each computer run every 20 minutes or every hour (on a Scheduled Task) that copied on set of favourites from a network computer across to every other PC's current user's and all user's ...:/documents and settings/xxxuserxxx/favourites/... folder.

Of course they could always save new stuff there, but it would only last 20 minutes or an hour if you had the bacth file delete all the previous contents before it copied the new stuff there.

If you really want to centrally manage all users IE settings (favourite, homepage, history, etc.) as well as their docyuments and desktop etc. then you are by far best off with AQctive Directory. This will require one central server running a server based Windows OS (i.e. Windows NT 4 or Windows Server). This will allow you to manage all activities of different users over a network via one central server, but it is a particularly tricky thing to manage (I am finding it very hard to work out even after 3 months of playing around with it).

 

[one_winger]

Easiest way (requires the most management):

Create a text file named whatever.cmd, and edit it:

[code:1:539c27a550]
net use [Drive Letter]: [\ComputerNameShareName[volume]] [Password] [/user:[DomainName]UserName] /persistent:no
xcopy [Network Drive]:[Favorites Directory]* Cocuments and Settings%USERNAME%Favorites
xcopy [Network Drive]:[Shortcut Directory]* Cocuments and Settings%USERNAME%Desktop
net use [Network Drive]: /delete
[/code:1:539c27a550]

This is the simplest way, place an entry that points to this batch file into the registry:

HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrent VersionRun
[Location of cmd file]whatever.cmd

Hope that helps.

Cheers,