Non-web technical questions like this one

[stjones at umbc.edu]

There are a fair number of questions that get posted to this list that
would probably be better posted to usenet groups.  I personally find
usenet an excellent source of technical information.  Questions like the
one below can be nicely handled under comp.os.ms-windows.networking.* (5
groups on my usenet provider) or comp.os.ms-windows.nt.* (12 groups).

Steve Jones

James Klock wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to set up a new Windows NT 4 server, and would like to set it up
> so that windows95 workstations authenticate within the domain, and then use
> the user profile (desktop icons, start menu, etc) resident on the server.
> In other words, user WEBPAC would get the same screen, regardless of which
> particular win95 machine that user sat down at.
> 
> Windows NT 4 seems to be fairly happy with this concept, and even has a
> buzzword for it ("roaming accounts", they call it.)  But I'm not certain
> how to convince the Win95 machines to get their user profile info from the
> server.  The Win95 Policy Editor looks like it will happily hack the
> registry for me, to redirect the individual bits that make up the user
> profile for "Current User", asking only that I specify the directory to
> pull them from.  Can I just use the standard network designation (ie
> \\SERVER\PATHTOPROFILES\%username%\Desktop\ where PATHTOPROFILES would be
> the share name of the directory in which the profiles are kept (by default,
> if I'm using the same profiles for remote server access as I would for
> local server access, %SYSTEMROOT%\profiles\)?
> 
> I've also come across the USERPROF.INF file, which looks like it might do
> some or all of this for me.
> 
> Does anyone have advice on how to get Windows95 and NT 4.0 to do what I want?
> 
> Thanks for the help!
> 
> James