jimf_guavatech

IN a windows 2003 domain is it possible to share one user profile on a server between multiple users logging into each server?

IE I login with user1 on server1 and create new profile
Then login with user2 on server1 and use same profile created by user1.
this way you dont have a ton of profiles on a serer and all have same desktop with proper setting.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Jimf

fitz

not quite the same thing and might not be exactly what you are looking for, but you get something similar using mandatory profiles

---

Electronic Punk

Yeah was also thinking mandatory policies, there was group policy I belive to remove roaming profiles when you log off also.
What would be the main reason for having these people log on to the servers directly anyway? A lot of things can be done via snap-ins these days.

---

jimf_guavatech

w2e have multiple people logging on servers for application management and dont want to be using 5 different profiles. How do mandatory profiles work. I have not heard about them before.

Electronic Punk

Well I think mandatory profiles would still create folders for all users unless you used it with the GPO option.

Not used them myself but I think you basically log on set things up exactly as you would like there you renamed NTuser.dat to *.man (unsure) and basically any user that logs on to that system will use those settings. Very rusty on that tho.

---

fitz

A mandatory profile is a form of roaming profile.. you create a profile the way you want it, assign it to the user in active directory, and they receiving the roaming profile every time and cannot save changes made to the profile. You might have an issue with the fact that these are roaming profiles and they would get the same mandatory profile on all workstations.

The other alternative is to use a group policies to deploy managed software to the server along with locking down the profiles on the workstations so they can't change anything. Apply said policy to just that server using either security filtering, or move it to it's own OU.

---

jimf_guavatech

That doesn't sound like it will work. Is there any other way to setup shared profiles on servers only not workstation.That way we can all have some profile by logging in with our proper username not administrator.

Electronic Punk

What exactly do they need to do on the server?

---