Windows 7 / Security and Privacy

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Configuring Profile Options

User accounts can also have profiles, logon scripts, and home directories associated with them. To configure these options, double-click a user account in Active Directory Users And Computers, and then click the Profile tab:

As the screen shows, you can set the following options on the Profile tab:

• Profile Path: Profiles provide the environment settings for users. Each time a user logs on to a computer, that user's profile is used to determine desktop and Control Panel settings, the availability of menu options and applications, and so on.
• Logon Script: As the name implies, logon scripts are accessed when users log on to their accounts. Logon scripts set commands that should be executed each time a user logs on. One user or many users can use a single logon script, and, as the administrator, you control which users run which scripts. You can specify a logon script to use by typing the path to the logon script in the Logon Scriptfield. Be sure to set the full path to the logon script, such as \\Corpdc05\LogonScripts\eng.vbs.
  Note: You shouldn't use scripts to set environment variables. Environment settings used by scripts aren't maintained for subsequent user processes. Also, you shouldn't use logon scripts to specify applications that should run at startup. You should set startup applications by placing the appropriate shortcuts in the user's Startup folder.
• Home Folder: A home folder can be assigned to each user account. Users can store and retrieve their personal files in this directory. Many applications use the home folder as the default for File Open and Save As operations, helping users find their resources easily. Home directories can be located on a user's local hard drive or on a shared network drive. If you don't assign a home folder, Windows Server 2008 uses a default local home folder.

To specify a home folder, do either of the following:

• You specify a local home folder by clicking the Local Path option, and then typing the path to the home folder on the user's computer. Here's an example:C:\Home\%UserName%.
• You specify a network home folder by selecting the Connect option in the Home Folder section, and then selecting a drive letter for the home folder. For consistency, you should use the same drive letter for all users. Also, be sure to select a drive letter that won't conflict with any currently configured physical or mapped drives. To avoid problems, you might want to use Z as the drive letter. After you select the drive letter, type the complete path to the home folder, using the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) notation, such as: \\Corpdc09\Home\%UserName%.

Note: %UserName% refers to the UserName environment variable. The Windows operating system has many environment variables, which are used to refer to user-specific and system-specific values. In this case, %UserName% is used to dynamically assign the user name as appropriate for the applicable user account.