User wants same desktop for local and domain user

[ronsandiego]

Hi all,
Our network is a domain with NT PDC. (soon to go to Win2000 Server.) We mostly have Win2000 Pro PCs now.

Current question=
I am setting up a win2000 Pro PC for a user "Fred" who strongly wants to see the same desktop when he is logged on as Fred as a domain user, or as Fred on the local computer. Fred will have administrator privileges on the local PC, but not on the domain. Is there some tricky way to make this happen, with minimal to no regular handling needed on the part of the user??

ie, I need some slick way of pointing 2 accounts (Fred as domain user has an a local account on the Local PC, along with the Fred local account) on the local PC to the same desktop, and when desktop changes are made by Fred logged on as a Domain user, these changes show up, the next time Fred logs on as a Local account user on the Local PC.

Is there a way to set up a small group, perhaps on the Local computer, with two members, Domain\Fred and Local\Fred and have this group defined with a common desktop. I am just starting to dig into this...meanwhile, all inputs are appreciated..

thanks...ron.........

[xenomorph69]

Are you wanting to do something along the lines as terminal Services? or VNC?
if so you may want to look at either the terminal Services off 2000 server or get Hummingbird you can see if that helps

here is the link
http://www.hummingbird.com/role/default/home.html

Hope this helps

[Midknyte]

I don't think you can easily do that. You are not running active directory, so all those features are unavailable. the closest thing you could do is copy and paste the files from one user account folder (in documents and settings) to the other user account folder. You would manually need to do this everytime there is a change. I suppose you could write a batch file to do this. there might be a third party app that can do this, but I don't think you can do this with just Local groups.

why does this user insist on doing this? In a corporate environment, users shouldn't have admin rights to their own computer.

[AllGamer]

Originally posted by ronsandiego
Hi all,
Our network is a domain with NT PDC. (soon to go to Win2000 Server.) We mostly have Win2000 Pro PCs now.

Current question=
I am setting up a win2000 Pro PC for a user "Fred" who strongly wants to see the same desktop when he is logged on as Fred as a domain user, or as Fred on the local computer. Fred will have administrator privileges on the local PC, but not on the domain. Is there some tricky way to make this happen, with minimal to no regular handling needed on the part of the user??

ie, I need some slick way of pointing 2 accounts (Fred as domain user has an a local account on the Local PC, along with the Fred local account) on the local PC to the same desktop, and when desktop changes are made by Fred logged on as a Domain user, these changes show up, the next time Fred logs on as a Local account user on the Local PC.

Is there a way to set up a small group, perhaps on the Local computer, with two members, Domain\Fred and Local\Fred and have this group defined with a common desktop. I am just starting to dig into this...meanwhile, all inputs are appreciated..

thanks...ron.........

Yes you can easily do what you describe

just Set "Fred" up as a Roaming Domain user

and make sure his profile is saved in the Server, and not locally

:) this is all documented in your Win2k Server manual :t

[mpc2]

Originally posted by AllGamer


Yes you can easily do what you describe

just Set "Fred" up as a Roaming Domain user

and make sure his profile is saved in the Server, and not locally

:) this is all documented in your Win2k Server manual :t

Roaming profiles are for when a user logs onto a domain. He is talking about the user logging on locally and having a profile on the domain controller isn't going to help because you don't authenticate onto the domain when logging on locally.


ronsandiego, there is no way to set this up natively the way the user wants that I know of. There may be third party software to allow it...I don't know.


Why does the user want it set up this way. Does he really need to be logging on locally?

[ronsandiego]

Thanks to all for your replies.
>>>>
Quote from posts == Why does the user want it set up this way. Does he really need to be logging on locally?
>>>>
My answer is like yours = not really. At least not when he is at the site here. He just thinks he should be able to. We are trying to convert folks to the domain way of thinking and prying them away from local control of their PCs. Obviously, this just makes the administrator job tougher if folks are doing who knows what to their local PCs.

However, there is this consideration=== This user sometimes travels. He has Win2000 on his laptop. There are times he works on his PC when he cannot/does not want to try to connect to the domain. This is part of the issue for him wanting the same look/feel of his desktop in this situation.
>>>>>

Quotes from posts =
" ronsandiego, there is no way to set this up natively the way the user wants that I know of. "
and
", but I don't think you can do this with just Local groups."
>>>
That is about what I thought. I agree that this should not be a big deal. Iwill pass along your answers, and that will ease the desire for this, I am sure.

What I came up with that he could do is this===
Log on as LocalComputer\Fred. Create a folder called c:\FredsDesktopStuff. Share the folder with Domain\Fred and LocalComputer\Fred. Put all his favorite shortcuts, etc in there.
Create a shortcut to this folder c:\FredsDesktopStuff on the desktop.
Log off, log back in as Domain\Fred. Create a shortcut on that desktop to c: \FredsDesktopStuff. This way, whichever way he is logged in, he can get to the shortcuts etc in this folder with one click on the shortcut on the desktop of however he is logged in.

You are all right, in general, domain users should not be logging into their local computer anyway, the vast majority of the time...

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

>>>Now I need help on a new issue. Please check the new thread on OS forum, and maybe I will post it on storage forum too... This new one has me puzzled a lot right now..

thanks to all you kind folks for responding... much appreciated....
ron.................

[Midknyte]

just fyi, you can login to a win2k system using a domain account on a laptop when you are not physically connected to the domain. I've done it on my dell.

You just gotta be firm with your users. When you finally get active directory and start using group policies, you'll see what I mean. the reason you don't give them control is to protect them from themselves. There are 2 kinds of people that make an admin's job difficult; the ones that don't know anything and the ones that know too much. :)