hey guyz,
at work we have a couple hundred individual machines on our network.
all machines are running xp sp2. we are deploying new machines out pretty much everyday, i’m getting tired of customizing a profile on each machine and setting it as the default profile for everyone who logs in on the domain. its the same repetitive steps over and over agian. does anyone know of a way that i can just make one profile and use it over and over again on multiple machines?
Re: xp Default Profiles
You can use Ghost to create the new machines in this case and not use the regular build that PC's come with. That way you'd get a cookie cutter profile everytime.
Re: xp Default Profiles
tofibaba,
would ghost actually copy all the settings over too? for eg. uhh lets say i setup a "default" home page in explorer, or mapped "my documents" > "user area G: on server", would all those settings get copied over also?
and secondly, not all machines have the same hardware configuration, will that be an issue? is there any freeware out there to do this?
thanks for ur reply
Re: xp Default Profiles
If the hardware is vastly different than this option won’t work. But yes, all PC’s are an exact copy of each other, down to the SID and for that you’d have to run the Ghost Walker which changes the unique identifier. I have created a ghost image of my boot drive on to a second drive after I freshly built the machine with all applications, settings and configurations. So anytime i feel something amiss i just ghost it back and i’m back to a fresh build. Haven’t been able to use an external drive for that yet. Still trying.
Re: xp Default Profiles
If you guys have a server like Altiris, you can also copy old profiles to new machines. This way the user will feel no different on the new machine. Less trouble for u if the user is comfortable. Altiris deploys images.. not only that you can also keep up with the inventory of all the software and what not.
Re: xp Default Profiles
all machines are pretty much dell machines. some with more ram, some with less cpu u know just minor changes, pretty much all dell machines have teh same video card that we have, a couple have different ones.
so i can create a ghost image on a cd and just start copying it oveR?
Re: xp Default Profiles
ok i looked into ghost...
i dont mind installing xp, and tweaking the installation for every setup
we have customized installler which installs all the apps - but the only thing thats becoming a headache is setting up a profile? is there anyway i can copy a profile off a machine that has been setup and apply it to the freshly installed machine as the default user profile?
Re: xp Default Profiles
How to customize Office XP for a hard disk image to configure a complete user system:
Re: xp Default Profiles
thats office xp yaar, i'm trying to configure user profiles on xp and copy them on to each machine rather than going around to each machine loggin in as admin and then changing the the "default" profile that all users use
Re: xp Default Profiles
How about SMS ? Create a build CD though Ghost & use it. U can even install XP over network (using SMS) or other network install method.
Re: xp Default Profiles
najim, can u expand on that? i really appreciate ur help
tofi - thank u very much for ur ideas
Re: xp Default Profiles
i don't think they're in the sms area, I was going to put that in but held back.
Gensec, how many subnets do u have? Is it a flat network, i.e. one subnet?
Re: xp Default Profiles
There is something like this
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842844
but I am not a Windows guy so u may have to do some search yourself.
Re: xp Default Profiles
http://www.petri.co.il/copy_user_profiles_in_windows_xp.htm
also you can create your own copy of Windows Installtion CD, with everything preinstalled and a user profile according your own specifications.
Re: xp Default Profiles
the Default Profile is just a folder, why don't u just copy it once you have customized it and then just put it on all new computers once u're done building it. Doesn't sound like a big deal.