Multiple accounts that act as one...

[Marker0077 0]

I need to have 2 accounts, 1 is the admin account & the other is for everyone else but the thing is, when something is done on one account, I want it to be the same for the other. This goes for the start menu, any theme changes, any size changes, anything & everything I want to be the same except the access levels (which is the point of having 2 accounts). Any suggestions?

 

Also, I am posting about this in the Win2k & WinXP forums because the server I have is Win2k but the clients are WinXP. The answer that I get in WinXP may not work in Win2k or vice versa, so please no complaints about the double post.

 

Thanks for your time either way,

- Marker0077

[clutch 1]

I would ask that you simply link to the posts in the future, rather than double post. This will assure that all of the responses are directed to the same thread. It would seem that your being defensive about it already indicates you are well aware that it can be annoying to others (having been a gaming forums manager and all).

 

Now, I am not sure what you are looking for. It would seem that you want all the users to see the same thing, and see what changes the other person has made. Unfortunately, (depending on your point of view I imagine) the only way to assure this behavior is to have all the users share the same account. The accounts will inherit all the properties of the "Default User" account, and many aspects can be controlled via group policy, but first is a one-time deal for the first logon, and the second is more administrative and not user-centric.

[Marker0077 0]

I am an admin again, appearently I was hired back & didn't know it lol. I never should have been fired in the first place but that's another story.

 

Anyways, as far as "being defensive about it already indicates you are well aware that it can be annoying to others" goes, it's really a grey area. We are dealing with 2 different OS's here so the reply for one may have not applied to the other OS. You could post a forward or you could just have 2 posts, it's really six in 1 hand & half dozen in the other. At least this is just how we would look at it in our neck of the forum woods but this is your house, if you'd prefer forwards, that's cool with me.

 

As far as what I am looking to accomplish goes, I want it to be set up so it's like everyone is using 1 account but I need 2 accounts to control what users can/can't do. If I set up shortcuts or change the theme or whatever the case may be, I don't want to have to do the same thing twice for everything, it's just annoying & unneccesary.

 

Unfortunately, I've been getting people who uninstall stuff that shouldn't be uninstalled & installing stuff that shouldn't be installed as well. Sometimes people own up to it, sometimes they don't. The bottom line is I don't want people messing with the system, it's set up the way it is for a reason; So, to remedy the situation I am creating 2 accounts, 1 is an admin account which I will use when I want to install programs & whatnot & the other is for everyone else to use.

 

I am also hoping this will help out with virus's as well. Sometimes we go to sites like astalavista (not altavista) & a screen comes up & says "you must install this in order to download" which is totally not true but the average user will more than likely not know that, well with the settings restricted, installing will not even be an option... hopefully. I haven't tested the restrictions out that extensively.

[duhmez 0]

re: the install this to download:

 

2 words to fix this issue.

 

Mozilla Firebird.

Active X is evil (big surprise there)

 

As for your other idea, dunno.One thing you could do a halfway workaround, have each profile use a custom desktop folde (use tweakUI to set it) and have both accounts point to same location. Instruct them to always have the program set a shortcut on the desktop. You can use group policy to set the desktop environment, but this won't allow for changes to propogate. You can use a logon script to copy the entire start menu from one to the other, then back again (xcopy will do)

That's all i got to add to this.

[Marker0077 0]

What is Mozilla Firebird?

 

I didn't know they did a Tweak UI for Win2k. Win2k is has so much stuff missing from it that Win98 has & WinXP has but Win2k doesn't, I just figured they didn't do one. I will look around for it.

 

Marker0077 LATE EDIT: Just checked out Mozilla Firebird - 1 question, what does on online browser have anything to do with what we are discussing here?

 

I checked out X-Setup & Tweak UI, neither one of which allows me to do what I was looking to do in whole but does in part. It's better than nothing I suppose. Thanks for the feedback.

[duhmez 0]

Re: What does mozilla have to do with your issues: If you look closely I commented on the fix for the autoprompt downloads from sites like astalavista, mozilla does not support active-X, which is what these spyware installers are using.

Type download tweakui in google and you will find the microsoft page for it, its for win95 through xp, possibly 2003.

[Marker0077 0]

tweakui: ya i checked that out & the x-setup proggy, both real cool. I'm not a newcomer to tweak ui although I must say, it is a bit buggy icon-wise & has been for some time.

 

mozilla: thanks for the tip but I'm not going to have everyone install & use a whole new browser just because of activex, however, i will disable activex now that I know that that's what causes the problem. Thanks again.

[clutch 1]

ActiveX is not the cause of the problem, as any browser can have this problem. The popup is merely showing a link to download and install an application, and the application is installed using HKCurrentUser keys and uses directories that any user can write to. This installer behavior allows for any user to install these applications (such as "Web Shots" and other apps that host spyware and the like). Group policy tweaks can limit what the user can launch, and apply very restrictive NTFS permissions. However these configuration options can be very destructive to the OS if configured improperly (and that happens a lot). I would think that anybody traversing ware, err, I mean "security" sites such as the one you mentioned would be wise enough to ignore those things. If you use something like the Google toolbar to block popups, this issue shouldn't come back. Also, you can control the use of ActiveX, but I haven't had any applications installed via a IE without my acknowledgement in the past, and I use the default security setting with respect to ActiveX, JavaScript, and the Java VM.

[Marker0077 0]

Well I do know that when I went to AstaLaVista in Opera, the browser would not permit the question of installing to even be asked. Anyways, what is that called specificall? I'm curious to what I should be blocking out name-wise.

 

Also, I set the security permissions for "System" to full control in almost all folders, so that should solve any system problem. Locally at least.

[clutch 1]

Opera may have been blocking popups, or simply couldn't deal with the scripting used on the site. I just hit some of the search engines there and got popups to install virus scanners and various other crap. This is the stuff that will get most people. Hostile controls are a rarity in general, and using default settings along with virus scanners that check ActiveX behavior will typically catch the rest. I have been using IE since version 3 (when it was fast and this stuff wasn't around) and I haven't run into hostile controls, nor has anyone else I know. It's usually the link that reads "click me" which gets them.

[Marker0077 0]

no no, I mean what is it called by the feature; Like do I disable "Install on Demand", do I disable "ActiveX", what do I look for to disable?

 

Alot of the users here are n00bs, if a pop-up says "install this or your computer will blow up", they'll do it. I need to make that option not even available.

[clutch 1]

Simply disable popups. If you have to, install the Google toolbar or something similar to disable them. You can disable ActiveX if you like, but it may adversly impact websites and applications that use IE and ActiveX components.