From 9e5870d92fb417ae671822395439e8f875b0ec5e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Luke Leighton Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:00:37 +0000 Subject: created from a really useful discussion about Win95 / NT profiles. Contributors: Bruce Cook Copyright (C) 1998 Bruce Cook John Terpestra Copyright (C) 1998 John H. Terpestra Wolfgang Ratzka Copyright (C) 1998 Wolfgang Ratzka (This used to be commit 2d7d013e0ca8fc2e97eb8299e3d847c57c40ed1c) --- docs/textdocs/PROFILES.txt | 285 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 285 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/textdocs/PROFILES.txt (limited to 'docs') diff --git a/docs/textdocs/PROFILES.txt b/docs/textdocs/PROFILES.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..88fdece516 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/textdocs/PROFILES.txt @@ -0,0 +1,285 @@ +Contributors: Bruce Cook + Copyright (C) 1998 Bruce Cook + + John Terpestra + Copyright (C) 1998 John H. Terpestra + + Wolfgang Ratzka + Copyright (C) 1998 Wolfgang Ratzka + +Created: April 11, 1998 +Updated: April 11, 1998 + +Subject: User Profiles +=========================================================================== + +From BC3-AU@bigfoot.com Sat Apr 11 13:36:05 1998 +Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 17:13:49 +1000 +From: Bruce Cook +To: Multiple recipients of list +Subject: RE: A question about NT Domains + +Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton writes: + > On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Jean-Francois Micouleau wrote: + > + > > On Fri, 10 Apr 1998, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: + > > + > > > ah, then i need to explain better. two or more users have identical + > > > profiles. say only one user installs a program which adds additional keys + > > > into the registry. those keys, as i understand it, will *not* be removed + > > > from HKEY_LOCAL_USER when subsequent users log in. + > > + > > under W95 or NT ? + > + > my experience is with Win95, but i expect the same for NT, and have been + > told that it is so by someone who runs NT admin training courses. + > + > > and why do you want to have one profile shared between multiples users ? + > + > you don't. how did you get that impression? i said multiple users with + > identical profiles, not multiple users sharing one profile. + +In my experience with both Win95 and NT, is that the HKEY_LOCAL_USER information +is stored in USER.dat or NTuser.DAT for NT. ALL of this branch is in this file +and there is no overlap between any two users (Unless you have '95 set up +to use a single common profile). + +[** lkcl: see jht's message for conditions under which an overlap can occur **] + +The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch is machine based, and shared by all users of that +machine. + + +[And now for a whole stack of caveats] + +1. User start menu paths are not stored in the registry (obviously) they're + a directory structure that located by settings in HKEY_LOCAL_USER. + + If you want start menues / desktop / favorites to be individual to a user + you must set up your user registry so these can be located individually. + The easiest tool to manage this is the policy editor. + +2. When you log onto 'Doze 95, it has to find the user registry. + + + If you have specified a common profile, a "default user" USER.DAT is used. + + If you have specified individualised profiles, then USER.DAT will be found + by the following formula: + + 1. if NET USE x: /HOME was used at startup, try for x:\USER.DAT (where + x: is any drive letter from A to Z. + if no USER.DAT is found go to step 3 + + 2. if no home is specified in a mapping, + ...\windows\profiles\username\USER.DAT is used. If no USER.DAT exists + go to step 3. + + 3. If neither of the previous two found a USER.DAT, then it will use + a prototype USER.DAT which it will later save to the above specified + path when the user logs out. + + The interesting thing here is that the prototype USER.DAT used here + is actually a copy of the last USER.DAT used on this machine. (This + may be the effect that the original poster is seeing) + + 4. As discussed above the start menu and desktop are specified in the + registry contained within USER.DAT. When a new USER.DAT is created + from a prototype, new directories are created for the start menu and + desktop ACCORDING TO HOW THE COPIED PROTOTYPE DEFINES THEM. + + So if the prototype USER.DAT says that start menu is in H:\Start Menu + but programs folder is C:\windows\start menu\programs, then the + H:\start menu will be created, and the existing machine programs + folder used. + + This means that is is important when creating roving profiles to get + your prototype USER.DAT and general user directory structure set up + exactly as you want it, and then make a copy of it that you know will + be safe from modification. When creating a new user you then copy + this prototype into the new user area, so that the new user doesn't + just inherit what the previous user had. + + +3. When you log onto 'Doze NT, it has to find the user registry. + + + NT is easier to see what's going on, but follows much the same rules as + '95. The big difference being that 'NT gets its profile location from + the login server when it's logged in. (On an NT system have a look at user + manager/user/profile - you will see that you can specify the user profile + path) Under NT3.51 this profile path was a path to NTuser.DAT, on 4.0 this + seems to be a path to a directory structure (haven't played with many NT4 + servers) + + I'm not sure how this works in samba, as I haven't yet tried the NT_DOM stuff + yet (Luke: I assume you have a keyword for this?) + +[lkcl: nt workstations should look in exactly the same places for things on + samba or other SMB servers as they do on an NT server, as long as that + SMB server looks like NT. if anyone finds that something fails, alert + us on samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au and we'll look into it]. + + When an NT system find a user without a NTuser.DAT, it copies from a + prototype that it stores especially for this purpose, so while unlike '95 + the user doesn't get whatever happened last on the machine, the user will + get a fairly minimalist configuration. + + +4. There are a *LOT* of reasons that the 'doze machine might not find USER.DAT + and therefore default to a prototype. + + 1. Can't execute logon script & therefore no /HOME mapping (Most common) + .Make sure the script exists + .that you have your logon script set right + .Netlogon share must exist + .Protection/ownership of the script and share + + 2. no /HOME mapping in the logon script + + 3. no home path specified in /etc/smb.conf (Or no home mapping set + up for that user in NT's user manager) + + 4. Protection/ownership of the user directory + + 5. protection/ownership of USER.DAT + + 6. basic networking problems + .Is the networking available (Test it by manually mapping + to both the user share and netlogon share) + .Was the networking working during logon ? + + 7. Has it defaulted to a prototype, and then had you map the home + directory afterwards ? - This will result in the bad prototype + being written into the users home, and them being stuck with it, + (Just replace USER.DAT again) + + +5. Interesting NOTE + + When '95 is performing the logon script, the HKEY_LOCAL_USERS has + NOT been mapped from the USER.DAT. What has been mapped at this stage + is the prototype registry (last one used). + + I assume the reason for this is that '95 is waiting for the logon + script to complete so that it can identify where the user's home + directory is. + + If at this point you attempt to do anything that uses the USER registry, + (installing something for example or reading something from the user + registry) you will actually be operating on the machine stored prototype + profile not the user profile. This means that nothing will realy + happen to the user setup (No menu items, no settings etc). + + To get around this you can name a process in the "run once" entries in + the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch, and these "run once" processes will be + executed once the USER.DAT is loaded, and all the user directories are + accessible. + + +To sum up: + + NET USE H: /HOME + is the key to getting your user profiles loaded from a server. + NET USE H: \\server\homes + Won't get it right without a lot of stuffing about. + + Windoze '95 goes through a lot to bring you your user profile and + if anything goes wrong during this process, it will drop back to + using whatever profile was last used on the machine. + + +From samba@aquasoft.com.au Sat Apr 11 13:48:54 1998 +Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 09:34:08 +1000 +From: Samba Bugs +To: Multiple recipients of list +Subject: Re: A question about NT Domains + +Just for the sake of completeness I thought I'd add a bit to this. +Let's be clear about which files affect registry changes (or contents). + +Under NT, open a command prompt interface: +cd %SystemRoot%\System32\config +dir + +The standard registry files are: + Default - all component default settings + System - all HKLM\System entries + Software - all HKLM\Software entries + Security - Domain/Machine releated User Rights & Privs. + SAM - the Security Access Manager database (ie:Passwords etc.) + +These are used by EVERYTHING!! + +When a user logs in the following files get checked: + 1) \\"Authenticating Server"\NETLOGON\NTConfig.Pol + 2) %SystemRoot%\Profiles\Policies\NTConfig.Pol + this one is a copy of the last NTConfig.Pol downloaded + from (1) above - if available. + 3) %SystemRoot%\Policies\%UserName%\NTUser.DAT + +The later, is first obtained from a profile server if the User_Init_Info +passed from the Domain Logon Server specifies use of a roaming profile. +If item (3) does NOT exist and/or NO default profile is available one gets +created from the system default settings PLUS the last loaded file at item +(2) above. + +The HKCU is always unique to the currently logged in user, BUT if the +currently logged in user is using a shared profile that has NOT been made +exclusive then on logout the HKCU will be written over the top of the +source files. That is why Mandatory profiles are essential when sharing a +roaming profile. + +On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Wolfgang Ratzka wrote: + +> Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: +> +> > my experience is with Win95, but i expect the same for NT, and have been +> > told that it is so by someone who runs NT admin training courses. +> +> On NT it is quite definitely not so. HKCU will always be loaded completely from +> the user's NTuser.dat file and unloaded again after logout. +> In fact HKCU is not a proper registry hive but a symbolic reference to the subkey of +> HKEY_USERS that corresponds to the current user. If more than one user +> is active on an NT machine (on plain vanilla NT this *is* possible if you have +> services running as a non-system user; on WinFrame or Hydra multiple users +> can be logged in) you will see several subkeys of HKU that correspond to +> the active users and don't interfere with each other. +> +> Of course some settings that a user can change do not go into the HKCU hive +> but into HKLM, most notably the screen resolution and the number of colours +> (you can use policies to prevent user's from changing these). +> Some applications put information that should go into HKCU into HKLM instead. +> (Hall of Shame: Netscape Communicator, Microsoft Office 97 [User dictionaries!]...). +> Others just use plain good old INI files in their program directory or even +> in \WINNT\SYSTEM32. Those changes will not be user specific but machine +> specific and those programs will cause trouble, when one tries to run them +> on WinFrame or Hydra... :-). +> +> Summarizing: +> +> Q: Will the next user inherit a previous user's additions +> to the HKCU registry hive? +> A: Quite definitely not. + +Correct. + +> +> Q: Can a user foul up the configuration for the next user? +> A: Quite definitely yes! + +See above. Yes, but not if correctly configured. + +> +> Q: Is this discussion out of place on the samba-ntdom list? +> A: Errr.... + +Errr... Really? I think it is. Do we, or do we not, want to help people to +gain stable and dependable use of samba? + +> -- +> Wolfgang Ratzka (dialing in from home) + +Cheers, +John H Terpstra (Also from home!!!!) + -- cgit