Hi. I am a complete beginner and need some help with the basics of setting up some Windows 98 clients off an NT4 server. How do I set up the W98 clients to create a drive, say F: as a home directory on the NT4 server? I believe I need to do this with some kind of logon script? I’m also going to have a couple of hundred users on this network and need to know the best way of doing this. Some advice would be helpful. Thanks, David dbinuk@hotmail.com

There are two ways - one for a new network for which you have not yet created the users and one for if the network already has a large number of users. For a new network: Create a directory called Users on the NT Server and share it with the default permission of full control for everyone. Then create subdirectories - one for each user and give that user full control to their folder and everyone else List permission. In User Manager for Domains, add the users and in their Profile section, indicate the location of their Home Directory. If you are doing this for multiple users you can use a Template to create the variables so you don't have to enter this information everytime. Create a user called Template. In the profile section under Home Directory choose "Connect" - choose a drive letter like "F" and enter the UNC path to the directory: \\servername\Users\%Username%. Now when you go to create your users, Click on the user called Template in User Manager, and choose Copy from the File menu. Enter the user's name and password, etc and their username will automatically get entered into the above mentioned path where the %Username% was. Saves you alot of time. The same goes for their profile path - in the Template user account enter the path to their profile as follows: \\servername\Profiles\%Username% and when you create a new user by using the Copy command their username will automatically get entered. Login Script method: In notepad create the login script and save it under Winnt\System32\Repl\Import\Scripts. Enter the name of the login script in User Manager for Domains under each users Profile section - just the name is required - not the full path. To create the login script, make a directory called Users and share it as mentioned above. Create a subfolder with the users name and give the permissions mentioned above. The login script can be made in Notepad and would look like this: net use F: \\servername\Users Save it with a .bat extension and be sure that .txt files is not selected in the filetype box - change to "All files" or the file will save as login.bat.txt and won't work of course. An important note about login scripts - they are DOS based and if your servername or sharename is longer than 8 letters then your login script won't work. If your network is large and uses BDC's, then Replication will need to be set up so the login script gets copied out to all the BDC's in case any of them are required to authenticate a user. Hope this doesn't sound too confusing. If you need a more detailed explanation then email me directly.

I was just introduced to this site and read your posting. It's exactly what I'm trying to do--the new network option-- and I follow the concept share/permissions fine. I believe my problem comes because I am dealing with two servers on one network. Our main server (FS1) holds the user network logins/accounts. Drive D on FS2 will house the user home directories. Here's my structure: --FS1 is our primary server and has all user login accounts entered here. I established user accounts for students on our server. --FS2 is larger and is where I created the USERS (shared) directory with STUDENTS directory nested inside. Inside STUDENTS I created a handful of home directories to test. So far so good. I can logon to the network as a student (FS1), but I cannot open or save to their home directory which is on FS2. Is there something I'm missing b/c of the two servers. I don't think it's a trust. Do I need a script to get from FS1 to FS2? Appreciate any help.