Mandatory Profiles problems

[Guest]

I posted this in the General group, but I think this is where it should go.
Thanks in advance.

Good afternoon everyone.
I am trying to implement a Mandatory User Profile for some of the teams
within our company. The main reason is that they move form station to
station, or even department to department way to often. When this happens we
have to go to the user's desk and reconfigured (all users is configure in
most machines, but still some applications settings are not copied over,
which happens to be the problem I will describe below.)
The problem:
I have succesfully created the Mandatory Profile in my test enviroment. No
problems there.
The problem is that some applications will not mantain the settings of the
original profile that is being used as the manadatory one, for example, the
IP address that they to connect to, key mappings, etc.
Another issue is that my IE is not picking up the policy that I have in
place to set the proxy settings.
I believe that those are the two big issues. I can't figure it out.
One thing I did was to redirect the Application Data folder to that of the
mandatory profile through a GPO. That did not work.
Perhaps the regitry is the answer, but I am not sure.
Any idea and help will be greatly appreciated.

Waldo

 

[Herb Martin]

I posted this in the General group, but I think this is where it should go.
Thanks in advance.

Reasonable "Crossposting" of a single message to multiple likely groups
is perfectly acceptable (next time).

I am trying to implement a Mandatory User Profile for some of the teams
within our company. The main reason is that they move form station to
station, or even department to department way to often. When this happens
we
have to go to the user's desk and reconfigured (all users is configure in
most machines, but still some applications settings are not copied over,
which happens to be the problem I will describe below.)

The problem:
I have succesfully created the Mandatory Profile in my test enviroment. No
problems there.

You say "tested" and "no problems" but below you say it isn't working so
are you really sure it is working at all?

The problem is that some applications will not mantain the settings of the
original profile that is being used as the manadatory one, for example,
the
IP address that they to connect to, key mappings, etc.

What do you mean by this, "APPLICATIONS will not maintain the settings..."?

Applications don't maintain the "profile setting" and a Mandatory profile is
READ ONLY if you mean that applications cannot keep the users settings
IN the profile.

Read-only is the NATURE of a mandatory profile.

Another issue is that my IE is not picking up the policy that I have in
place to set the proxy settings.

Is this in the user profile? Is IE being set from a Group Policy or even
(maybe best) from WPAD entry in DNS or DHCP?

I believe that those are the two big issues. I can't figure it out.

You may need to clarify exacty what the problem is -- the above was
unclear so I just took a couple of guesses to try to help.

One thing I did was to redirect the Application Data folder to that of the
mandatory profile through a GPO. That did not work.

GPO and Mandatory Profile are really distince although they set some of
the same things.

Does this profile work as expected when it is just tested as a non-mandatory
profile or even mandatory?

How do you know it is even being used if the settings are not taking effect?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your response Herb. I'll try to respond to your questions below.
Let me know if it is clear enough this time. I really appreciate your help.
Have a wonderful weekend.

Waldo

Reasonable "Crossposting" of a single message to multiple likely groups
is perfectly acceptable (next time).



You say "tested" and "no problems" but below you say it isn't working so
are you really sure it is working at all?

I created the profile, put it in the server, made it mandatory and assigned
it to a tester user profile. When the user logos on to a PC I get no errors
and the desktop looks exactly like I want it to look.

What do you mean by this, "APPLICATIONS will not maintain the settings..."?

We use several emulation applications to connect to our client's system
remotely. We have to configure these emulators so that they now where to go,
and how to behave. For example, we have to put the IP address, or perhaps
some keyboard mapping, among other.

Some of my emulators work just fine. They keep their settings from the
original or template profile that I used to create the Mandatory Profile.
Some do not keep the profile at all, so I would have to manually enter it
because of the nature of Mandatory profiles (Read Only)

Another point regarding those emulators is that this is their natural
behavior. What I mean by this is that if I go to a workstation and install
that application, I then have to manually configure it for every user in the
machine. If for example I copy the shortcut to the application to the All
Users profile, the emulator will not maintain the settings. I will have to
configure it every time a new user logs on to the PC.

Applications that do not any configuration at all, like our main corporate
system, work fine too.

I hope it is clearer here.

Applications don't maintain the "profile setting" and a Mandatory profile is
READ ONLY if you mean that applications cannot keep the users settings
IN the profile.

Read-only is the NATURE of a mandatory profile.

As exposed above, I understand this. I understand that no changes will be
changed between sessions. What I don't understand is why some applications DO
keep their settings and other don't. It my be an application related issue,
but I guess that is what I am trying to figre out.

Is this in the user profile? Is IE being set from a Group Policy or even
(maybe best) from WPAD entry in DNS or DHCP?

I have the proxy settings through GPO. I don't know how to do it through the
other technique you mention. I can try it if you point me in the right
direction.

You may need to clarify exacty what the problem is -- the above was
unclear so I just took a couple of guesses to try to help.


GPO and Mandatory Profile are really distince although they set some of
the same things.

Does this profile work as expected when it is just tested as a non-mandatory
profile or even mandatory?

I have not tested the profile as a roaming. I will try that and let you know.