Customizing Windows 98 with Profiles and Policy Files

You can predefine settings in user profiles and system policy files to control user actions. For example:

• You can enforce a mandatory desktop configuration by installing a mandatory user profile (User.man) in users’ home directory.
• You can control the user’s security privileges, network access, and desktop configuration if you install system policy files on the logon server. This is the Public directory on a NetWare server or the \Netlogon directory on the primary domain controller for a Windows NT domain.

To take advantage of these features in Windows 98, you must define the user profile and system policy settings to be used. Then place these files in the appropriate directories before users run Windows 98 Setup. When users log on to Windows 98, the profiles and policies will be used automatically.

For information about creating and using user profiles and system policy files, see Chapter 7, "User Profiles" and Chapter 8, "System Policies." You can enable user profiles and policies using a setup script created with Microsoft Batch 98. For an example of setup script statements that enable user profiles, group policies, and remote administration, see Appendix D, "Msbatch.inf Parameters for Setup Scripts."