Help with User Profiles in Windows Server 2008

You should drop the users in the active directory manger to their own folder than in the gpo manger apply that gpo to that group you made and then run that cmd from before "gpupdate" and they should on next logon follow it. you might want to copy the default gpo and make your own based off it so that you don't mess with the default one. Just make sure you group only has the modified one applied to it and not the default one. If you need I can grab pics for you tomorrow from a 2008 R2 server.

ITtechie7783 said:

I am still thinking my way out of my issue is the ntuser.dat file but I am not 100% so i am looking for more input. I am not saying your reply is wrong i am just uncertain if the active desktop option is going to solve my problem. Can you give me a little more info? Is active desktop the same as desktop? In other words will disabling active desktop actually stop a user from adding or deleting items from the desktop?

It should cover both web items and icons. You can always try it then just revert it. make a user group and only put a test user it it then make a gpo with that setup and apply it to just hat group and see if it does the behavior you want. The company's I maintain prefer to use a script to make everyone's desktop the same till they mess with it then folder redirection saves their changes for their profile only.

townsbg said:

My school used deep freeze. After a desktop reboot the system was restore to the point when it was last "frozen" unless it was hacked. http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/

Another possibility is to only load roaming profiles but I've never set that up before.

While Deepfreeze would solve this issue they are looking to do it server side and not client side. It is a good alternative though.

ITtechie7783 said:

Yah we want to do it server side. And we are using roaming profiles (users can log on to any computers in the schools with their accounts.) And thanks for the info rvcjew. If the group policy for desktop stops web icons and icons being added to the desktop then thats exactly what i am looking for. I also noticed there's a group policy for locking the wallpaper as well which is handy. You wouldn't believe how often students like to mess with wallpapers and put junk as the background lol. So i will give this a shot next week. We just set up our firewalls this week for remoting in to our servers and devices so that should make things easier for me to tweak as well!!

Good luck and the wallpaper is a good idea as well, our wallpapers are locked down as well (kids like to hide icons then then use a desktop screenshot for the wallpaper lol).

@ rvcjew

Any chance at some step by step instructions if you have time? Again, i have a student account for users that is a roaming profile stored server side. The client machines are running window 7. P.S. do i have to use active directory with gpo?(Sorry that was a bit of a dumb question since gpo is connected to active directory.) I am just wondering if you could give me some instructions though. Like how to add a certain user to the policies i create etc.