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Adaptable New User Start Menu

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by josep_m

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The first time an user log on a client Windows 2000 Pro PC, his profile is created (with Default User settings). That client is on a Windows 2000 Server domain (a Server PC with active directory)
I want that diferent Start Menus applies at diferents new users: if the user belongs to the group A an Start Menu and if he belongs to the group B another diferent Start menu. Naturally the groups A and B are defined on the Server.
Is that possible to make?

8 replies

by parbo

I'm not sure about this but the policy editor might have what you're looking for. I know you can prevent users from using certain programs with it but not sure if it takes the option out of the startmenu

by josep_m

I modified Default user and All Users folders. But I want to diferentiaty 2 classes of users (every classe with his menus, ...) Need more concret help :-(

by mr.mcse

This answer assumes you are using Active Directory.

I will also give examples based on the following (adjust to your environment as required)
Domain = your_domain.com
Domain Controller Host Name = host_name
OU1 = Accounting
OU2 = Human recources
Group1 = Accounting
Group2 = HR
User1 = actUser (member of Accounting group, account lives in the Accounting OU)
User2 = hrUser (member of HR group, account lives in the Human Resources OU)

-- Create Group policy for Accounting OU --
-open AD users and Computers
-expand "your_domain"
-right click on the "Accounting" OU then select "properties"
-Click on the "Group policies" tab.
-Click on the "new" button.
-Name the new policy (such as: Accounting Startmenu Policy)
-Click on the "Edit" button.
-in the tree, expand "User Configuration".
-Expand "Windows Settings".
-Expand "Folder Redirection".
-Right click on "Start menu" and select "Properties".
-Select "Advanced - Specify locations for various user groups" from the "Setting" drop down list.
-"Browse" the list of groups and select the "Accounting" group from the list.
-"Browse" to the folder location that contains the Start menu items you want to be used by this group (NOTE: Create at least the folder, on a networked drive, ahead of time, set permissions on the folder appropriate for the group accessing them.)
-Close the group policy window when finished.

by mr.mcse

More....

--Create Group policy for Human resources OU--
-Do the same steps as above only for the Human Resources OU.

Thats all. Assuming of course that you have setup the two Start Menu redirect folder locations with the appropriate start menu items.

Whenever actUser logs on, the group policy created in the Accounting OU will be applied because the actUsers lives in the accounting OU. The Start Menu items will be setup from the redirect folder location specified for this group policy.

Same is true for the hrUser.

Note:

You can't create group policies for the built in container objects in AD (like Users, Built in, etc.. so you will need to create your own OU's for this to work.)

Also, There are probably betters ways to accomplish the same task when you are creating the group policy itself, the way I just explained happened to be the first thing I saw when looking around. However, the basic steps are the same.

Lastly, Group policies can cause serious issues if you don't understand how they work. You should play around with them on a seperate "test" environment first.

Hope it helps,

Andrew Greig, MCSE

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