I was hoping somebody might be able to point me in the right direction for getting information on how to do this. I have, let's say, 10 XP PCs that maybe 60 users will login to. I would like these users to be able to use any one of the PCs. These users will come and go rapidly so I would rather not have to manually add and remove accounts on each PC as they do. All PCs will be connected to one Brighthouse router which, of course, will be the connection to the Internet. My question is can I manage user accounts from one PC running XP. I can not use a server OS, they all will have to be XP. Can I add a new user and/or remove an account from all the PCs from one "centralized" PC? I've read all sorts of stuff about Active Directory and domain controllers which apparently XP can only act as a client. So I guess that's out. Is there any other way? Any advice would be appreciated, Thank You!

in this case best solution will be active directory otherwsie you have to setup all accounts manually in each and every pc but its not practicle. easy and best method will be to install active directory and configure users to have roaming profile (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316353) so that way the users will get same desktop and settings what ever pc they logging inDishan M. Francis, Senior Technology Consultant

Thank you, sir, for your response. I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible without the use of a server (other than IIS which already comes with XP). It's beginning to look grim, though. I wonder if Samba for Windows could do something like this. I'm not sure but I think I could get Samba running on Linux to do it but like I say every PC has got to be XP. Still looking for ideas.

Hello, there is no other way then using Active directory, otherwise you have to manage all user accounts locally on each computer. So you have the use at least for one server to install AD.Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Thanks Mr. Weber. I was afraid of that. Now moving to the Linux side. Cah-faw, cah-faw. This is a really cool forum, though.

Thanks Mr. Weber. I was afraid of that. Now moving to the Linux side. Cah-faw, cah-faw. This is a really cool forum, though. himrockffan, I was going to say, if you setup a fedora box on at least some cheap hardware, you can run openldap to manage your user accounts. Fedora is the free, unsupported of Red Hat. Doesn't necessarily mean that no one can support it but Red Hat. There's also OpenSuse (Novell) or OpenSolaris(Sun/unix) operating systems to run an LDAP oriented system. It will not give you the provisioning that Server 2003 has but it will work.Steve Kline - MCITP AAS - IT: Computer Network Systems MCTS: Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring MCTS: Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring PRO: Server 2008 Server Administrator All answers are posted, "As Is" with no warranties or guarantees implied. http://www.itjournal-stevekline.com - Content coming soon.

Thank you, Mr. Kline. LDAP, huh? I'm going to look into that deeper. Yeah, I'm dual booting Windows and Debian. So I'll try that first. Thanks for your post.