Guide To Windows NT 4.0 Profiles and Policies (Part 6 of 6)

• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0
• Microsoft Windows 95

SUMMARY

This article is the sixth in a series of articles that provides information and procedures for implementing Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Profiles and Policies on client workstations and servers.

A whitepaper is available that contains all of this information and additional flowcharts, diagrams and examples and can be downloaded from the following web page:

http://www.microsoft.com/NTServer/management/deployment/planguide/

prof_policies.asp

Q161334 Guide to Windows NT 4.0 Profiles & Policies Part 1 of 6

Q185587 Guide to Windows NT 4.0 Profiles & Policies Part 2 of 6

Q185588 Guide to Windows NT 4.0 Profiles & Policies Part 3 of 6

Q185589 Guide to Windows NT 4.0 Profiles & Policies Part 4 of 6

Q185590 Guide to Windows NT 4.0 Profiles & Policies Part 5 of 6

MORE INFORMATION

                   Windows NT Server Operating System
                             White Paper
         Guide to Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Profiles and Policies

Copyright 1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of
Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of
publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions,
it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft,
and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented
after the date of publication.

This White Paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Microsoft, the BackOffice logo, MS-DOS, Windows, and Windows NT are
registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Other product or company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of
their respective owners.

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
USA
0997

FOR MORE INFORMATION
====================

For more information when configuring your network, refer to the following:

 - Windows NT Server Concepts and Planning Guide ( Chapter 3, "Managing
   User Work Environments" (part of the Windows NT Server product
   documentation).

 - Kixtart Resource Kit Utility available in the Windows NT Server Resource
   Kit for version 4.0.

For the latest information on Windows NT Server, check out our World Wide
Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/backoffice or the Windows NT Server
Forum on the Microsoft Network (GO WORD: MSNTS).

APPENDIX A - FLOWCHARTS
<Flowcharts included in whitepaper referenced at the beginning of this
article>

APPENDIX B - IMPLEMENTING USER PROFILES
The following are typical user profile scenarios that you may encounter in
the future or may have already encountered. Each of these scenarios
includes a brief description of the situation, the current status of the
profiles on the server, actions that you need to take to administer the
profile properly, any required user action, references to sections of this
guide that have more detailed information, and any applicable usage notes.

EXISTING WINDOWS NT 3.5X ROAMING PROFILE
========================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 3.5x roaming profile and will
continue to log on to Windows NT 3.5x-based computers only.

 - What currently exists: A Myuser.usr file exists in the folder
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: None.

 - User action: None.

EXISTING WINDOWS NT 3.5X ROAMING PROFILE
========================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 3.5x mandatory profile and will
continue to log on to Windows NT 3.5x-based computers only.

 - What currently exists: A Myuser.man file exists in the folder
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: None.

 - User action: None.

MIGRATING WINDOWS NT 3.5X ROAMING PROFILE TO WINDOWS NT 4.0 ROAMING PROFILE
===========================================================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 3.5x roaming profile and moves to
a Windows NT 4.0-based computer.

 - What currently exists: A Myuser.usr file exists in the folder
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: None.

 - User action: To automatically upgrade the profile, log on to the
   Windows NT 4.0-based computer and then log off. The automatic upgrade
   creates a new folder with the name Myuser.pds in the existing directory
   \\myserver\myshare. Inside the new folder is the upgraded User Profile
   for the domain user.

 - For more information: See the section "Upgrading 3.5x Server-Based
   Profiles to 4.0 Roaming Profiles."

MIGRATING WINDOWS NT 3.5X MANDATORY
PROFILE TO WINDOWS NT 4.0 MANDATORY PROFILE
===========================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 3.5x mandatory profile and moves
to a Windows NT 4.0-based computer where the user will have a mandatory
profile.

 - What currently exists: A Myuser.man file exists in the folder
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: Create a folder with the name Myuser.pdm in the
   existing folder \\myserver\myshare, and then place the desired mandatory
   profile into the new folder.

 - User action: None.

 - NOTES: Once this procedure is performed, the Windows NT 3.5x profile is
   still available to the user should he or she ever log on to a Windows NT
   3.5x-based computer again. The Windows NT 4.0 User Profile is maintained
   separately. The administrator can remove the Windows NT 3.5x profile if
   the user will only be using Windows NT 4.0-based computers.

 - For more information: See the section "Upgrading 3.5x Mandatory Profiles
   to 4.0 Mandatory Profiles."

MIGRATING WINDOWS NT 3.5X MANDATORY
PROFILE TO WINDOWS NT 4.0 ROAMING PROFILE
=========================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 3.5x mandatory profile and moves
to a Windows NT 4.0-based computer where they will have a roaming profile.

 - What currently exists: A Myuser.man file exists in the folder
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: Change the user's profile path to
   \\myserver\myshare\myuser, and then allow the user to log on and log
   off.

 - User action: When instructed to do so, log on to the Windows NT 4.0-
   based computer and then log off. This creates the folder
   \\myserver\myshare\myuser on the server containing the user's new
   roaming profile.

 - For more information: See the section "Creating a New Roaming User
   Profile for Windows NT 4.0."

CREATING A NEW WINDOWS NT 4.0 ROAMING PROFILE
=============================================

A new user will be logging onto Windows NT 4.0-based computers only, and
will be using a roaming profile.

 - What currently exists: Nothing currently exists for the user in
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: In User Manager, specify the User Profile path
   without an extension. For example, use \\myserver\myshare\myuser.

 - User action: Log on and then log off. This creates the folder on the
   server \\myserver\myshare\myuser that contains the user's new roaming
   profile.

 - For more information: See the section "Creating a New Roaming User
   Profile for Windows NT 4.0."

CREATING A NEW WINDOWS NT 4.0 MANDATORY PROFILE
===============================================

A new user will be logging onto Windows NT 4.0-based computers only, and
will be using a mandatory profile.

 - What currently exists: Nothing currently exists for the user in
   \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: In User Manager, specify the User Profile path
   with the extension .man. For example, use \\myserver\myshare\myuser.man.
   Then manually create the myuser.man folder manually in the
   \\myserver\myshare directory. Places the mandatory profile for the user
   in this new folder.

 - User action: None.

 - For more information: See the section "Creating a New Mandatory User
   Profile for Windows NT 4.0."

UPDATING AND CHANGING A ROAMING PROFILE TO A MANDATORY PROFILE
==============================================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 4.0 roaming User Profile that was
not upgraded from Windows NT 3.5x, and the administrator is going to
mandate that the profile be read or logon will denied.

 - What currently exists: A myuser folder containing the user's roaming
   profile exists in \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: Use User Manager to add the .man extension to the
   User Profile path, thus changing the path to
   \\myserver\myshare\myuser.man. Then, rename the existing folder that
   contains the user's roaming profile from myuser to Myuser.man. Finally,
   rename the Ntuser.dat file, which is located in the root of the user's
   profile folder, to Ntuser.man.

 - User action: None.

 - For more information: See the section "Making a Roaming Profile
   Mandatory in Windows NT 4.0."

CHANGING A ROAMING PROFILE TO A MANDATORY PROFILE
=================================================

A domain user has an existing Windows NT 4.0 roaming User Profile that was
upgraded from Windows NT 3.5x, and the administrator is going to mandate
that the profile be read or logon will denied.

 - What currently exists: A Myuser.pds folder containing the user's roaming
   profile exists in \\myserver\myshare.

 - Administrator action: Use User Manager to change the extension of the
   User Profile path to .man, changing the path to
   \\myserver\myshare\myuser.man. Then rename the existing folder that
   contains the user's roaming profile from Myuser.pds to Myuser.pdm.
   Finally, rename the Ntuser.dat file, which is located in the root of the
   user's profile folder, to Ntuser.man.

 - User action: None.

 - For more information: See the section "Making a Roaming Profile
   Mandatory in Windows NT 4.0."

APPENDIX C - USAGE NOTES
========================

Important Information for Administrators
Regarding User Logons and User Logoffs
----------------------------------------

 - Changes that you make to server-based profiles can be lost if you do not
   modify the last modification date/time stamp. When a locally cached
   version of a profile is compared with the server-based profile, only the
   time/date stamp of the Ntuser.xxx file is compared. If the stamps are
   the same, the local copy is used. If you have made modifications to
   other folders within the profile, these changes can be lost. Utilities
   are available to update the last modified date.

 - If the Default User profile directory (including the Ntuser.xxx file) is
   not available at log on, a new user who does not have a server-based
   Default User Profile will be unable to log on. When troubleshooting
   logon problems or if a user receives a message stating that the profile
   could not be loaded, always check for the existence of the Default User
   profile.

 - If the locally cached copy of the User Profile is more current than the
   server-based profile, and if it is not mandatory, the user will be
   prompted to select which profile to use.

 - If the user does not successfully receive a profile when he or she logs
   on, the user should check to see if the profile path can be reached by
   connecting to that resource with Explorer, File Manager, or Start\Run.

 - Users who are members of both the Domain Users and Guests group or who
   are members of just the Guests group will have their local profiles
   deleted automatically at logoff.

Recent Updates to Profiles Since Retail Release
-----------------------------------------------

 - In the original retail release of Windows NT Server 4.0, if the
   administrator creates a mandatory profile that ends with .man and the
   user is denied access to the profile, the user is still able to log on
   locally, rather than being denied access. This problem was resolved in
   Service Pack 3.

 - Under certain conditions, sharing violations when accessing roaming or
   mandatory profiles could occur. Before this problem was resolved, if
   multiple users tried to log on at the exact same time, a sharing
   violation could result on the files making up the User Profile because
   Windows NT was attempting to get exclusive access to the profile. This
   was resolved in Service Pack 2.

 - Administrators creating shortcuts on one machine for use on a central
   server have run into problems on user's workstations where a password
   prompt is displayed asking for credentials to the machine that
   originally created the shortcut. This is due to the default behavior of
   Windows NT using the "absolute path" (the path to the original location
   where the shortcut was created), to start an application even if the
   application is available in the specified path of the shortcut
   properties. In Service Pack 2, support was added to give the
   administrator the ability to disable this behavior and use the path
   specified in the shortcut properties. For more information, reference
   Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q158682.

Recent Updates to Policies Since Retail Release
-----------------------------------------------

The following changes have been made to System Policies support since the
initial retail release of Windows NT 4.0.

 - When a policy file was to be downloaded, if the validating domain
   controller name was 13 characters or longer, the policy would not be
   applied. This has been resolved in Service Pack 3.

 - NoNetConnectDisconnect, NoTrayContextMenu, NoViewContextMenu,
   NoFileMenu, and DisableTaskMgr were added in Service Pack 2. For more
   information on these, see the section, "Registry Keys Modified by the
   System Policy Editor Default Templates."

 - In Service Pack 2 and later, the policy file is no longer cached. This
   change was made to increase security. Instead of being cached, the
   policy file is downloaded at each logon, written to a temporary file,
   and applied.

 - When the NoViewContextMenu policy was introduced, it did not support the
   tree view on the left-hand side of Explorer. This was corrected in
   Service Pack 3. If this option is turned on, context menus for both the
   list view and the tree view are disabled.

 - Manual mode policy path expansion support was added in Service Pack 3.
   If you specify a policy path in the registry (rather than using
   Automatic mode), Windows NT now supports paths in the form of
   \\someserver\share\ntconfig.pol.

 - If the administrator created a new policy file and turned on synchronous
   logon scripts, saved it to disk, and reloaded the policy file, the
   policy setting would be lost because the .adm file needed modification
   in three different places. This was corrected in Service Pack 3.

 - Changing the location of a user's Start menu caused duplicate Programs
   items. If you used the System Policy Editor to change the Custom Start
   Menu to point to a different directory (even an empty one), the user
   would receive the normal Programs menu item and a Programs menu item
   above it that pointed to the All Users programs directory. This has been
   corrected in Service Pack 3.

 - The Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit contains .adm files that
   administrators can use when configuring the Office environment for their
   users. This is available now from Microsoft.

APPENDIX D - RELATED KNOWLEDGE BASE ARTICLES
============================================

The articles below can be referenced either on TechNet or by using the
Microsoft Knowledge Base on Microsoft's Web site.

Profiles
 Q141714  How to Use %LOGONSERVER% to Distribute User Profiles
 Q154120  Debugging User Profiles and System Policies in Windows NT 4.0
 Q156568  How to Assign the Administrator Profile to Other Users
 Q156697  Updating Permissions for User Profiles
 Q158398  Automating Network Printer Setup
 Q142682  How to Create and Copy Roaming User Profiles in Windows NT 4.0
 Q146050  Modifying Ntuser.dat Hive So New Users Get Defined Settings
 Q160546  No User Profiles Were Found
 Q161070  Step-by-Step Roaming Profiles Configuration
 Q157069  Can't Access this Folder Path Is Too Long Error
 Q161809  How to Create Mandatory Profiles for Windows 95/98 
          Users in Windows NT Domain
 Q165398  Profiles for Members of Guests Group are Deleted
 Q164133  Logon Allowed When Access Denied to Mandatory User Profile
 Q162790  "Auto Arrange" Activates Itself in Copied User Profiles
 Q162717  Autodial Settings Lost When Using Roaming Profiles
 Q159927  Cannot Delete Certain User Profiles
 Q160840  Sharing Violation When Accessing User Profiles
 Q146192  How Windows NT Chooses Between Roaming and Local Profiles
 Q158899  Prompted for Password When Restoring Persistent Connections
 Q158682  Shortcuts Created Under Windows NT 4.0 Resolve to UNC Paths
 Q155587  No Administrative Tools or Common Folders Available
 Q157621  Personal Groups Not Visible If %Systemroot% Is Read-Only
 Q156695  Locating Windows NT 4.0 Profile Directories for Duplicate User
          Accounts
 Q138321  Err Msg at Logon: Unable To Log You On Because Your Profile...
          Policies
 Q151176  Policy Registry Entries (Default User)
 Q154120  Debugging User Profiles and System Policies in Windows NT 4.0
 Q156365  Hidden Shares Are no Longer Available After Using System Policy
 Q156689  How to Change Print Job Priority in Windows NT 4.0
 Q156699  Limitations of "Run Only Allowed Windows Application"
 Q162774  Policy Editor Crashes When Using Large Custom ADM Files
 Q162331  Internet Explorer May Not Run with System Policies
 Q159936  Using the Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 95 System Policy Editor
 Q160793  Additional Desktop Restrictions Available through Registry
          Modification
 Q143164  INF: How to Protect Windows NT Desktops in Public Areas
 Q158398  Automating Network Printer Setup
 Q156698  Disabling Access to Network Resources Using System Policies
 Q156432  Windows NT 4.0 Policy Restriction Error at Logon
 Q155956  Cannot Restore Default Setting for Shutdown Button
 Q163215  System Policies May Not Work With Third-Party GINA DLLs 

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Version : WINDOWS:95; winnt:4.0
Platform : WINDOWS winnt
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