Defining Mandatory User Profiles

In Windows 95, you can create mandatory user profiles for use on Windows NT or NetWare networks. You can use this feature to create a standard user profile for each computer and ensure it is implemented at every logon. To do this, create a USER.DAT file with the settings you want, save it as USER.MAN, and place it in the network directory for each user you want to use that profile. The network directory is either the user's home directory (on a Windows NT network) or MAIL directory (on a NetWare network).

If USER.MAN is present when the user logs on, Windows 95 uses this mandatory copy to load settings into the Registry rather than any previous local user profile. If the user manually makes changes to the desktop configuration during the work session, these changes are not saved to the master copy in the user's network directory when the user logs off.

To create a mandatory user profile

1. Enable user profiles. For information about enabling user profiles, see "Enabling User Profiles" earlier in this chapter.
2. On any computer running Windows 95, customize the desktop as you want it to be for the mandatory user profile.
3. Copy the required files for the user profile to the home directory for Windows NT networks or to the MAIL directory for NetWare networks, as described in "Setting Up User Profiles on a NetWare Network" earlier in this chapter.

   Note Windows 95 copies these files automatically for normal user profiles, but not for mandatory user profiles.

4. Rename USER.DAT to USER.MAN in the user's home directory.