Transition to using DLU

Question

Hello:
Currently, our machines all have a local account named "Workstation" that does an "Autologin" after the user authenticates to NDS. We are transitioning to using DLU and have a procedure for creating a new account and doing a CopyTo from the "Workstation" account to the new users account. Our policy is set to "Manage existing account".
My question: Is there a problem with simply renaming the local Workstation account to the NDS username and leaving the local Profile as Workstation (C:\Documents and Settings\Workstation)?
This would save a considerable amount of time; however, do not want to proceed if there may be associated problems with doing this.
Regards,

Answer 1

Thanks for your reply.
All that I was trying to determine was if you simply rename the Workstation account will it still use the Workstation Profile (C:\Documents and Settings\Workstation), and would there be any unforeseen problems created by doing this.
eg.
UserA logs in however instead of creating a new local profile, it attaches to the Workstation profile that already exists.
After much testing, we have determined that this works fine. Each user is tied to a unique SID and so even if the username is changed it continues to use the same profile regardless.
The end state or when a new machine is given to a user, they will have an account which matches the local profile: UserA logs in and uses the C:\Documents and Settings\UserA account). No local workstation account.
To overcome the as you put it "Chicken and egg" problem. We are only dealing with mobile users first and having to associate users to the policy as we go...
Cheers,
Jon
Originally Posted by Croaker
Couple of things..
If you rename account the profile won't exist on that path anymore (I.e. you
rename C:\Documents and Settings\Workstation to C:\Documents and
Settings\USERa)
you also kind of have a chicken and the egg problem. How will you know what
user to rename the local profile to until they login? and if they login,
you can't change the profile while its being used.
I guess its not really clear what you want your end state to be.
Do you want the local workstation account to still exist (i.e. to provide a
non-edirectory local login)
but allow DLU to create individual accounts?
If this is the case, you may want to do soemething like this:
Create your DLU policy, but do NOT manage local accounts.
have DLU make accoutns with the edirectory name (and make them non-volitile
unless you need that or are using roaming profiles, which doesn't sound to
be the case).
Then, in your DLU policy, you can grant local file access to DLU accounts.
Add in C:\Documents and Settings\Workstation\Desktop, Favorites, My Docs,
etc
to the file permissions (read only if you want, or R/W)
That way when you transition, if people have files on the local computer,
they can copy/move them to thier new profile fairly easily.
You can also disable logins on the local account (but keep it alive if
needed) fairly easily with a zen app.
>>> On 3/19/2009 at 10:56 AM, in message
<[email protected]>, jon
carriere<[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello:
>
> Currently, our machines all have a local account named "Workstation"that
> does an "Autologin" after the user authenticates to NDS. We
> aretransitioning to using DLU and have a procedure for creating a
> newaccount and doing a CopyTo from the "Workstation" account to the
> newusers account. Our policy is set to "Manage existing account".
>
> My question: Is there a problem with simply renaming the
> localWorkstation account to the NDS username and leaving the local
> Profile asWorkstation (C:\Documents and Settings\Workstation)?
>
> This would save a considerable amount of time; however, do not want
> toproceed if there may be associated problems with doing this.
>
> Regards,--
jon_carriere----------------------------------------------------------------
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