Desktop File Problems

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butterl04

New Member
Hey people im currently working in an educational surround with full admin rights, but the problem is the desktops are cluttered like mad, i sorted everything out to a corresponding folder etc. away from the desktop, i then log off and back on and suddenly there back on, the user is a teachers account so all teachers log on with this one account. Now i realised i may have to log off every computer with the teacher username logged on, but still the same problem, everything keeps getting restored and the files i saved to certain folders are still there :S i found on the internet that certain programs that use these files can keep restoring these, but i believe thats not the case as theres internet shortcuts, notepad files Word documents etc. nothing specialised, I also want a script or something (With full instructions) to restrict all users or certain ones i choose from saving files to the desktop, preferably without using a program as im not too sure on the security issues etc. any help on this matter would be gratefully appreciated

Oh btw im using windows XP sp2 i believe

Many thanks in advance people
 
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First of all, the best way to restrict certain users from writing files anywhere is to make sure that each user has their own account. If the users (teachers) are using one SINGLE account for everyone, you will have no way of specifying permissions by individual.

Second, are the workstations authenticating to a domain controller and using roaming profiles?
 
Zatharus said:
First of all, the best way to restrict certain users from writing files anywhere is to make sure that each user has their own account. If the users (teachers) are using one SINGLE account for everyone, you will have no way of specifying permissions by individual.

Second, are the workstations authenticating to a domain controller and using roaming profiles?
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well i have admin account and basically the teachers use the teachers account (respectively) and the pupils all have a user name that is designated to there class for example all year 12's would have the username (for example) "Year 12" and save to there documents area from there, so surely i should be able to use something to restrict them saving to the desktop or at least get rid of these file that keep re appearing, and i dont have a clue on wether its domain etc. describe possibly?

thanks again though
 
Roaming profiles can work but is not ideal (see below). That would also explain the files re-appearing. Yes, you will need to make sure all instances of the account are logged off before deleting and re-organizing files. Whenever you log off an instance of the account it will sync with the server and thus potentially re-transfer those files you moved/deleted. Using roaming profiles in the manner you are will get rather messy in a hurry.

What I have gathered so far is that you have very few individual accounts; i.e one account for each grade and one for the teachers - say about five in total. Correct?

In your situation where you have multiple users using the same account, I would highly recommend using Mandatory Profiles. This makes the account read only and gives you much more control on the look and restrictions of the shared account. You can then redirect each account's "My Documents" folder to a separate network share where you can control the permissions more easily. Using this setup, the desktop and anything other than the "My Documents" folder is refreshed from the server every time the account is logged in.

In using Mandatory Profiles, no changes to the desktop are saved. The are tossed an overwritten at each logout/login. You can then use the desktop for persistent files such as notices and shortcuts to the places where the user can save files permanently. This would allow you much more flexibility and control on file organization.
 
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