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We now have our Windows Server 2008 server up and running, with all of our user accounts loaded with roaming profiles.

The users are separated using Organisational Units, as follows:

Directors
  - User
  - User
Doctor
  - User
  - User
  - User
Nurse
  - User
  - User
  - User
  - User
Office/Admin Staff
  - User
  - User
  - User

In time, I will be setting up a GP for each of the OU's but I wanted to ask a couple of questions about them first.

1) Is it possible to login to one of the user accounts within each OU and setup the desktop exactly how I want it (wallpaper, shortcuts and mapped drives) and then applying the settings to all users within an OU?

2) I have currently set it up so each user has their own Home drive, mapped to drive H. Somewhere along the way I have successfully set it so the drive is called %USERNAME%. Is is possible to remove the words after the persons username? (the location of the share etc.) So basically it would just read "%USERNAME%?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Danny

voretaq7
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dannymcc
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1 Answers1

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Is it possible to login to one of the user accounts within each OU and setup the desktop exactly how I want it (wallpaper, shortcuts and mapped drives) and then applying the settings to all users within an OU?

Not that I'm aware of, though it wouldn't surprise me if there were 3rd party tools that do just this. All of the settings you mention are visible in Server 2008 GPOs. It can be done manually.

I have currently set it up so each user has their own Home drive, mapped to drive H. Somewhere along the way I have successfully set it so the drive is called %USERNAME%. Is is possible to remove the words after the persons username? (the location of the share etc.) So basically it would just read "%USERNAME%?

If I'm reading this right, you currently have mapped drives that show in explorer like %USERNAME% on %SERVER%\%SHARE% and want it to just read %USERNAME%. This can be done in a GPO Preference. They're found under User Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Drive Maps. The text you enter in "Label as" is what is used. The variable "LogonUser" is what you're looking for.

sysadmin1138
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  • So shoreside can be added for programs that are installed on the workstation? Word, excel etc.? – dannymcc Oct 04 '10 at 18:29
  • @dannymmc Application-specific changes are not likely to be GPO-able without specific GPO plugins. Office 2010 DOES have that: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179077.aspx non-MS applications generally don't. – sysadmin1138 Oct 04 '10 at 18:35
  • I have to say, I'm a little surprised that I can't have specific shortcuts on the desktop and then bulk apply then to other users. Maybe the original MS Office quick launch bar is the way to go. When mapping network drives is it possible to force a shortcut for it on the desktop? – dannymcc Oct 04 '10 at 18:49
  • @dannymcc Shortcuts on the desktop are easy, User Config -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Shortcuts. The dialog allows you to drop shortcuts on the desktop. No guarantee for their *location* on the desktop, but they'll be on the desktop. I just didn't know what "shoreside" meant in your first comment. – sysadmin1138 Oct 04 '10 at 18:57
  • Ha, sorry - just noticed that typo. iPhones are too smart for their own good. I see, so I can create a shortcut that links to the installed programs on the computer. So, presumably, as it's a group policy they will appear on all workstations that the user logs in to? An interesting test would be to see if there is a way of hiding the shortcut if the workstation doesn't have that particular application installed. – dannymcc Oct 04 '10 at 19:11
  • "Item Level Targeting" in Preferences can do what you want, only deploy if a certain executable is present. I haven't done it, but the capabilities are there for the intrepid. – sysadmin1138 Oct 04 '10 at 19:37