Ok first off, I have very

Greg K — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:53:41 +0000

Ok first off, I have very little "working experience" on networks with windows server, so some of this may be off, but may get you looking in the right direction.

I believe the way to do this is setting up a domain on the server (different from a domain name from a website), then each desktop pc is told to join the domain (similar to setting them all to the same Workgroup). Then when they go to login, they actually validate the login with the (domain) server.

Also another things that can be used is something called Roaming Profiles. With this, if I understand from what I was reading when I was going to try it, your settings for the user are actually stored on the server, and each time you log in they are pulled down. (ie. All the icons on your desktop, everything in My Documents).

With the size of files people have in there now a days (think My Pictures), I wonder how effective it is. Makes me realize the true need for gigabit connections LOL.

I'd love to hear from people who have actually setup/used roaming profiles, to see if it is like I think. I have only scratched the surface of roaming profiles using a linux server with samba.

-Greg

If the server controls the

greg — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:52:00 +0000

If the server controls the network for all the PC's on the network (which I presume it does) then yes you want that server to handle the user logins, file and folder permissions, software permissions etc.

You open up a load of other options there too.
Such as controlling multiple or single access to certain programs or files. Like only one person on one machine can be accessing an Excel spreadsheet.

You can give each user their own folder to save their own docs in, have a generic folder for departments that users or groups can access, apply and manage permissions to certain people/groups for accessing certain software/folders/files.

It is something you should probably have a good read of to get the most out of it.

Do you currently have users setup on the server? Or are all users currently on a "per PC" basis?

I'm also presuming that if Jane logs Joe out to use the same software on a certain machine, then the software is stored locally, rather than on the server. Obviously in that case the software will only ever be able to be accessed by the machine it's installed on.
which is a usual scenario as multiple licenses are generally not cheap.

Here's something that might help if you only have per PC users..
http://www.howtonetworking.com/sbs/adduser1.htm

And from the "horses mouth"
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/support/articles/sec_sbs2003_netw...

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc707987.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc747456.aspx