Chapter 8: Profiles: Local, Roaming, and Mandatory

Overview

When a user logs on to any Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows 2003 machine, a profile is automatically generated. A profile is a collection of settings, specific to a user, that stick with that user throughout the working experience. In this chapter, I'll talk about three types of profiles.

First is the Local Profile , which is created whenever a user logs on. Next is the Roaming Profile , which enables users to hop from machine to machine while maintaining the same configuration settings at each machine. Along our journey, I'll also discuss some configuration tweaks that you can set using specific policy settings specifically for Roaming Profiles.

The third type of profile is the Mandatory Profile. Like Roaming Profiles, Mandatory Profiles allow the user to jump from machine to machine. But Mandatory Profiles force a user's Desktop and settings to remain exactly the same as they were when the administrator assigned the profile; the user cannot permanently change the settings.

Note 

In general, your users will use Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP machines in their daily lives. However, the information in this entire chapter is equally valid should you have a user, such as a SQL Server admin, use a Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 machine as well. However, for the majority of this chapter, we'll assume (and therefore usually only address) when users use Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP machines for ease of reading.