Installing to All Users

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

maramijade - 27 Jul 2007 22:29 GMT

Hey all,

creating a new user image and trying to install the programs to all
users.

I've been creating auto installers of individual programs with the
plan on using these to build more customizable images depending on
labs/ needs.

I'm able to install the program and move it's links into the all users
profile in the start menu, and change the profile links while creating
the auto installer.

However. . . in the registry, the programs still install to
HKey_Current_User .

Is there a way to install a program so that it, and it's settings are
available to All Users?

Here are some things we've tried:

Substituting HKEY_Local_Machine for HKey_Current_User --> doesn't
always work

we've tried creating a user, having it's profile saved updated and
then placing all files into the All Users File . . . settings did
not carry over (example, word broke, Mozilla did not hold settings)
even with changing the permissions

System Properties -> Advanced -> User Profiles (Settings) we tried to
copy the prototype user into All Users, but would not allow the copy
since All Users could not be deleted (this is of course only happening
when we change the permitted users to \EVERYONE)

We'd really like to avoid the NTUSER.DAT 'fix' for this as it is
impractical for the 40K + users that my organization supports.
(University)

Thanks for any help in this matter. . . in advance!

Reply to this Message

Shenan Stanley - 29 Jul 2007 16:00 GMT

> Hey all,
>
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
>
> Thanks for any help in this matter. . . in advance!

You need to make a default user profile in addition to the unattended
installations.

Are you using methods from appdeploy.com, unattended.sourceforge.net and
unattended.msfn.org?
(You should check each of those out if you are not.)

Signature

Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Reply to this Message

Ian - 29 Jul 2007 19:46 GMT

> However. . . in the registry, the programs still install to
> HKey_Current_User .
>
> Is there a way to install a program so that it, and it's settings are
> available to All Users?

No. The "All Users" profile is a special case, and only certain parts of its
contents are actually used. In particular it does not contain any settings
for programs. Its puspose is mainly to contain shortcuts that all users see.

Also, note carefully that a Default User profile is only applicable to new
useraccounts which have yet to log-on for the first time. If that is the
situation, then a Default profile will work. If not, then it will not work.

I could suggest a few workarounds:

1. Export the registry section to a .reg file, and use a logon-script to
import this to each account.

2. Use an app-packager such as InstallRite to make up a registry-patching
.exe

3. Use a scripting language (AutoIt is recommended) to write the required
registry changes. This is probably the best approach as it can be made more
'intelligent' such that it only copies keys which don't already exist, and
thus doesn't over-write any changes the user subsequently makes.

Reply to this Message

maramijade - 31 Jul 2007 15:34 GMT

Thanks Ian,

> No. The "All Users" profile is a special case, and only certain parts of its
> contents are actually used. In particular it does not contain any settings
> for programs. Its puspose is mainly to contain shortcuts that all users see.

I kinda figured that, and saw it before I posted.

> I could suggest a few workarounds:
>
> 1. Export the registry section to a .reg file, and use a logon-script to
> import this to each account.

which is what we are looking to avoid due to the large ammount of user
accounts we have to service, thanks for the idea though!

> 2. Use an app-packager such as InstallRite to make up a registry-patching
> .exe

Using Ghost's AI Builder at the moment, that was where I was able to
see where it was making changes in the registry, If I was able to find
a way in the registry around it, I'd be able to build it into each
auto-installer/ application package that I'm making.

> 3. Use a scripting language (AutoIt is recommended) to write the required
> registry changes. This is probably the best approach as it can be made more
> 'intelligent' such that it only copies keys which don't already exist, and
> thus doesn't over-write any changes the user subsequently makes.

A possibility,

Also my boss came up with an idea to overlay and redirect their
profile paths when they load. Hopefully he'll share a little bit
more of that process with me when we get there. .

Thanks so much for your help!

Reply to this Message