setting (some) default settings

Your right . The IEAK does allow you to do that. I spent 5 hrs on the phone with M$ trying to figure out why I couldnt get past the point where IE goes out to the M$ site to get the latest updates for itself. Turns out (M$ thinks, but they're not sure) thats its our corp firewall. An Issue I am unable to resolve unfortunatly. I did find a technique for making any user who logs on see (mostly)what I wanted though. If you go to cntl panel\system\user profiles. Delete all profs but the one youhave set up, then copy that to the c:\doc and settings\default user profile (default is hidden by the way so you have to unhide hidden stuff to see it)it works pretty much the way you want. There was the issue of user rights though. Many apps make changes to the reg the first time a user runs them after their profile is created. Users cant make changes to the reg so I had to elevate their privaledges. There was no way around the choke point in the IEAK thing so some anoying things have gone unresolved. The Outlook Express icon for instance in the quickstart bar. even if I delete it from my profile and then copy the prof to default, it shows up in every users q/s bar. Lots of stuff learned in this exercise and lots more to go. I wish I could use Active Directory but the powers that be determined we're not ready. Dang! Thanks for the reply. Your the only one who answered so I guess I posted in a dark and dusty corner of the forum or maybe nobody else knows much about this either.
GB