We are currently exploring security options for new users on a fresh W2K install (all NTFS, SP2 has been applied) and notice that when we create a new user account who is a member of
the Users group only, the account is denied access when signing on for the first time locally. The message is “. . . cannot load user profile. . .” If we give this user explicit security rights to the Documents and
Settings Folder we can then sign on, and since the user profile has been created we can subsequently sign on even if we take the explicit right away. If we only gave the Users Group rights to this folder we would not have been
allowed to sign on.
If we had made the New User a member of the Power Users group then we would also have been able to sign on without doing anything special. Here again, if we were to remove the New User from the Power Users group, it would have no effect on subsequent sign-ons because the new profile
would have already been created.
If possible, cansomeone confirm that this is the intended behavior of W2K (i.e., profiles for new users are NOT always loadable by the OS)? By the way, giving security rights to the local drive alone did not bypass the “. . . cannot load user profile . . .” message. We had to either
add the user to the Power Users group or explicitly add them in the Security Tab of the Documents and Settings Folder. Thanks for any help/comments.