w2k3 and Roaming Profiles

[imported_waldo]

Here is a question...my brother has 5 kids, all fairly young, and he would like to set roaming profiles up on his computers....the only thing is, as far as I know, with Roaming Profiles, you need to login text based. Is there a way to have the login screens simply display the Icon pcitures that XP normally displays at the login while doing Roaming Profiles?

 

[TonyRic]

AFAIK this would require a domain controller and the systems joined to that Domain, which would require XP Pro. Domain logins cannot have that icon based login, since those are limited to local system logins only. No domain logins allowed there.

 

[spyordie007]

What is he trying to accomplish with roaming profiles? And why are you asking about server 2003 (this sounds like a client question, aka XP).

He might be able to do some/all of what he is looking for with folder redirection (i.e. consistant "my documents"); I think folder-redirection can be used on non-domain members.

 

[imported_waldo]

the issue is possibly solved with redirection...I am not sure. All the computers have Windows XP Pro....and are setup as Roaming Profiles. There is a server running Windows Server 2003 and it is set up as a domain controller, but obviously that can all be changed.

What he is trying to accomplish, is that his kids can log on to any computer, regardless of location in the house, and have all their settings, bookmarks etc. The reason he would like the Icons, is because some of the kids can't necessarily spell very well, let alone type in a password and username, tabing to the different sections of the login screen.

 

[spyordie007]

What he is trying to accomplish, is that his kids can log on to any computer, regardless of location in the house, and have all their settings, bookmarks etc.

Than roaming profiles are probably the best option to get everything; folder redirection works well for the supported folders; but that's certainly not everything in their user profiiles.

The reason he would like the Icons, is because some of the kids can't necessarily spell very well, let alone type in a password and username, tabing to the different sections of the login screen.

Unfortunetly under XP fast user switching is not available to domain members. This changes in Vista, though I realize that doesnt do him much good now.

There are some ideas that come to mind that would be fun play projects; though I dont know how well they would work in his situation (were it me I might try some of them). Smartcards or biometric logins would make it easy for the kids to login without having to "know anything"; but I dont know how practical that would be.

I'm not sure if there are any 3rd party products that would fufil his objectives, but that might be something to look into as well.

-Erik

 

[imported_waldo]

thanks for the thoughts...maybe I can sell him on some biometric stuff!!