Legacy workstation woes! (lengthy)

[da Swede]

I need advice on creating a bare bones default user profile for Windows 98
workstations connected to a Windows 2000 server.

This is my project ...

I'm working with a small high school lab in a satellite building that was
previously a peer-to-peer LAN with all Windows 98 second edition systems.

I am installing a Windows 2000 server to the eight workstations. I am
promoting this to domain controller. This domain will operate stand-alone
for the balance of the school year. New fiber-optic infrastructure is being
installed that will allow this domain to join the main campus beginning of
next school year.

Each student is being assigned an account and personal folder on the server.
Roaming profiles seem to be an acceptable way to go for this lab -- besides,
it's a nice test-bed experiment.

Upgrading the workstations to NT or Win2k is not an option at this time.

Here's my problem:

If the student selects 'cancel' at a login screen, he is passed through to
the default profile on the local machine.

I am aware that this is a security weakness with Windows 98 -- I only want
to make this default profile so generic that the average user cannot create
mischief with it.

Here is what I have attempted without success:

From a local workstation, I created a test user (profiles are enabled). I
then stripped this profile of anything clickable and gave it an obnoxious
purple background that includes the warning that unless this student logs on
properly, he will be plagued with zits and bad breath.

After logging off - then back on as administrator, I deleted the 'user.dat'
file from the windows folder of the local workstation, then replaced it with
a copy of 'user.dat' from the profile of the test user.

Thinking I had acomplished my mission, I logged off, and clicked cancel at
the next login prompt. Alas, instead of coming back as the new profile I
had hoped, it complained of a corrupt registry problem, re-booted and
re-built from the backup registry file - giving me the same original default
user that I did not want.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for an answer to this?

Also, can this new profile be triggered from the server, or must it first
reside on each of the workstations?

Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.

da Swede

[Alex Meaden]

You might be able to use System Policy Editor to prevent access without
logging on. It's on the Win98 CD in \tools\reskit\netadmin\poledit.

Alex.

--
Mr Alex E J Meaden
Computer Science BSc Student
University of Kent at Canterbury
ae...@ukc.ac.uk
al...@alexmeaden.net

"da Swede" <wiz...@microspect.com> wrote in message
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