I have a problem... I want to be able to set a 2003 server so when a specific user on a client machine shuts it down and it starts up again the user profile is reloaded... I do not want this to happen when loggin off and loggin in only when the computer is shut down and then turned back on.... Can anyone point me in the right direction for instructions on how to achieve this...

just to make sure we understand, you want this specific user profile (let's say user X) to load only when both of these conditions are met:- machine is shutdown AND- it is shutdown by user Xif anyone else shuts down the machine then you want it to go to the standard CTL+ALT+DEL prompt?/richhttp://cbfive.com/blog

well the first part yes i want it the user profile to reload every time the machine is shutdown... not logged off.... the second part.... not necessary.... thanx jafric

does your machine have a logon banner? if not, try autoadminlogon. see this article for more details: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/324737. note that it does store the password in the registry.thx./richhttp://cbfive.com/blog

Not... this is not the answer I am looking for.... let me rephrase the question.... These machines are on a domain... and I want the regular user's profile to be reloaded everytime the computer is turned on from a reboot or start up... I dunno is if that makes more sense...

yea, i am having a hard time understanding what you are looking for. even domain joined machines can use autoadminlogon. what is the 'regular user'? is that the built-in administrator account you are talking about?http://cbfive.com/blog

Ok let me see if i can explain this is depth. I work at an educational institution and we have about 120 computers on a domain. As a user of the the domain admins, I was instructed by my supervisor to find a way to get the regular domain user account (this account does not have any administrative privileges), that the students use to log in to the workstations, to be able to have the domain controller instruct each workstation to automatically delete the user profile of the regular domain user account once the workstation is turned off or rebooted. I do NOT want the user profile/account deleted from the workstation when the user logs off and logs back in ... ONLY when the computer does a complete shutdown cycle or reboot. The domain controllers are two windows 2003 servers and the workstations all run windows XP Pro. Hope this clears up the confusion... Thanks Jafric

is this regular domain user account a shared account? or does each student have an account? you can write a startup or shutdown script that will delete all profiles from a machine. it's a little less complicated if there is a single profile you are looking to delete though. i'd recommend that you use a startup script to do this really so that if the box gets a hard shutdown (where shutdown scripts would not run), the profiles will still be deleted at boot time. /richhttp://cbfive.com/blog

it is a shared account a single domain user account that the students log on with... I was hoping there was a way to implement this in the group policy on the server... any ideas of what the script might look like..???

startup scripts can be run out of group policy. the script could very simply delete the file system and registry location for the profile. in order to do this, you are going to have to figure out what the SID is for this shared user account. there are lots of ways to do this but since you have to go to the regkey anyway, browse to HKLM | Software | Microsoft | Windows NT | CurrentVersion | ProfileList and look through each of the subkeys (which should be SIDs) to find the one that has the path to your shared user account profile in the ProfileImagePath registry value. BTW, the data in the ProfileImagePath registry value should be the file location that you'll be deleting. Right-click on the key name (SID) that has the appropriate ProfileImagePath and select Copy Key Name. Your script structure could look something like: rd /q /s "<data from ProfileImagePath value>" reg delete "<pasted key name>" for example: rd /q /s "c:\documents and settings\rich" reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-4120221289-2493823990-1381160072-1000" /f if you don't want to do this with a script, you can use group policy preferences to accomplish this as well. /richhttp://cbfive.com/blog

Thanks for the insight.... Just incase my boss does not want to do it the script way... so you have any directions on where i can find this in the group policy preferences ???... I searched but couldn't find anything that would be suitable to achieve this... Thanks Jafric Rhyner

sure. you have to create the policies from a vista or later machine but it can apply to any machine that has the group policy preferences CSE loaded (here's the one for 2003: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bfe775f9-5c34-44d0-8a94-44e47db35add&displaylang=en). then, if you go into the group policy editor on the policy in question, expand Computer Configuration | Preferences | Windows Settings | Folder. In the right-pane, right-click and select New | Folder. In the Action drop-down you can select Delete and then the other options in that box. Registry keys are deleted in the same way just out of the Registry node under Windows Settings. hth /richhttp://cbfive.com/blog

Thank you soo much for this... I will apply it and test it.. and see if it works out... Thanks Jafric