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Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 24th 15, 03:01 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 878
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

Here's the situation: a non-profit where I volunteer wants to establish a
computer/office skills training program. They've already done a little
pilot work with half a dozen students to figure out what's important to
them and how to present it. It was deemed successful and they've tweaked
a few things as a result.

Recently, the organization has received a donation of half a dozen
desktop and ten laptop machines for this purpose. They are all running
Win 7 Pro (and pass the Win 8.1 readiness test should we decide to go
that route).

I figure we can support the students in two ways and I'm fishing for
suggestions. We can set up a client-server system by using one of the
desktop machines as a server for the others. There is a strong suggestion
by experienced instructors that the students NOT be allowed to store
files locally--on the desktop or laptop machines. A pinch of additional
HD capacity on the designated server would suffice and is inexpensive
these days. It requires a fair bit of setup, however. The other
possibility is to issue thumb drives to the students where their work
files would reside. It has the advantage that their work is portable - if
they have access to other machines they can bring it with them, i.e., to
the local library which provides free computer use.

I have never set up a client-server network on Windows, but I have on
other systems, so I think I could grope my way through it. My question
regarding the thumb drive approach is this: can one set up a portable
drive in such a way as to essentially contain their user environment plus
work files? I presume there would be a userid associated with each thumb
drive. In other words, can what would normally reside in c:\users for
each student live on the USB drive? That would have to include the
Documents folders as well as local settings(?).

TIA,

Jason
Ads
  #2  
Old April 24th 15, 04:38 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

Jason wrote:

Here's the situation: a non-profit where I volunteer wants to establish a
computer/office skills training program. They've already done a little
pilot work with half a dozen students to figure out what's important to
them and how to present it. It was deemed successful and they've tweaked
a few things as a result.

Recently, the organization has received a donation of half a dozen
desktop and ten laptop machines for this purpose. They are all running
Win 7 Pro (and pass the Win 8.1 readiness test should we decide to go
that route).

I figure we can support the students in two ways and I'm fishing for
suggestions. We can set up a client-server system by using one of the
desktop machines as a server for the others. There is a strong suggestion
by experienced instructors that the students NOT be allowed to store
files locally--on the desktop or laptop machines. A pinch of additional
HD capacity on the designated server would suffice and is inexpensive
these days. It requires a fair bit of setup, however. The other
possibility is to issue thumb drives to the students where their work
files would reside. It has the advantage that their work is portable - if
they have access to other machines they can bring it with them, i.e., to
the local library which provides free computer use.

I have never set up a client-server network on Windows, but I have on
other systems, so I think I could grope my way through it. My question
regarding the thumb drive approach is this: can one set up a portable
drive in such a way as to essentially contain their user environment plus
work files? I presume there would be a userid associated with each thumb
drive. In other words, can what would normally reside in c:\users for
each student live on the USB drive? That would have to include the
Documents folders as well as local settings(?).

TIA,

Jason


Returnil System Safe
(http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/products)
free version available, don't bother with their integrate anti-virus
unclear if non-profit use if permitted but business use is not

Toolwiz Time Freeze
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/deta...me_freeze.html
http://www.toolwiz.com/en (site is currently down)
free

Acronis True Image (backup software, payware)
includes Try & Decide

These programs redirect all disk changes (and that includes the registry
since changes are saved to disk files) to a virtual disk. The students
can phuck up the computer as much as they want. When the computer is
next rebooted, all the changes to the virtual disk are discarded. Upon
reboot either the real disk is accessed or a new virtual disk is used;
that is, the reboot can return the computer to full use or it can wipe
the changes and virtual any changes thereafter. The instructor powers
down the computers at the end of the day or the students after they quit
using the computer or a scheduled event can run shutdown.exe to power
off the computer. Thus a following boot discards all changes from
before and starts fresh (with the real or another virtualized disk).
This eliminates having to restore the computer after the students screw
up the computer.

The reboot-and-wipe process means new software cannot be installed when
the virtual disk is active. These provide a password feature so only
the instructor could reboot back to the real disk to install software.
That also means while the virtual disk is active that any software
installs that require a reboot will be absent after the reboot.

These programs permit setting up folders that are not protected. As I
recall, they cannot be in the OS partition but have to be on a drive for
a different partition. The virtual disk is storing all changes on the
OS partition so data files cannot be saved there; else, on a reboot, all
those data files or the changes to them will disappear.

You can use the wizard in Windows to change the physical location of the
%userprofile% folder which contains the default user folders of My
Documents, Pictures, Videos, My Music, and other special folders. One
method to change the location of a special folder is to right-click on
it, select Properties, and use the Move button under the Location tab.
Many programs are hardcoded to use the default path for an assumed user
profile folder. That is, you telling Windows to move the folder doesn't
make ignorant programs change from using their hardcoded path.

That means after having Windows move the special folder to somewhere
else still requires creating a junction point for the old folder that
points to the new folder. After using Windows to move the old folder to
a new folder, make sure everything gets copied from the old folder to
the new folder (I don't think the Windows move will move all files).
Rename the old user profile folder, like appending .OLD to its name.
Then use the 'mklink' tool to create a junction point at the same point
as the old user profile folder. So you:

- Use Windows wizard to move special folder:
- Make sure everything gets copied from old to new folder.
- Rename the old folder (e.g., C:\users\oldprofile).
- Use mklink to create a junction point that is the same as the old user
profile folder (e.g., mklink /j c:\users\oldprofile
d:\newprofile). The old folder cannot exist because the junction
replaces it in NTFS (so t can redirect to the new folder).

This is off the top of my head so there may be nuances that I missed.
The idea is to get Windows to move the special folder to somewhere else,
make sure everything under the user profile folder gets copied over.
Rename (or delete) the old user profile folder and replace it with a
junction that points to the new folder. I'm sure you can find online
tutorials that guide you step by step on how to move the special
folders, user profile, and use mklink to point any requests to the old
user folder to the new one.

While I've not heard (or read but then I didn't bother to research)
anyone moving the special folders or user profile folder to a removable
device (e.g., USB-attached drive), I suspect some real problems would
arise if local permanant storage were not used. Just what would happen
if the USB drive wasn't plugged in and a program wanted to store some
app data under the %userprofile% path -- which doesn't physically exist
because you forgot to plug in the USB drive? And does a pre-inserted
USB device get assigned a drive letter early enough during the Windows
boot process to ensure nothing would try that access the folders on the
USB devicde before it got a drive letter assigned to it? I suspect
there would be problems trying to move special folders or the
%userprofile% folder to removable or networked devices. Move and
redirect (via junction) to local storage, like a drive letter assigned
to another partition on a hard disk in the computer. The user can do
their own copying to the USB drive whenever they want. You could, for
example, write a .bat file that paused with a prompt to the user telling
them to copy their data files to a USB drive and then add that batch
file as a logoff script. Whenever they logged off (or shutdown which
first initiates a logoff), the script would run to remind them to copy
(or it would do the copy but would need some checks that the USB drive
was available before trying to do the copy, and issue a prompt to tell
the user to keep their fingers off the computer during the copy).

http://www.bing.com/search?q=logoff script windows 7
  #3  
Old April 24th 15, 04:43 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
. . .winston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,345
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

Jason wrote:
I presume there would be a userid associated with each thumb
drive. In other words, can what would normally reside in c:\users for
each student live on the USB drive? That would have to include the
Documents folders as well as local settings(?).

TIA,

Jason


One can't relocate 'what normally' resides in c:\users elsewhere.

Windows will object to any attempts to store a userprofile externally.

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps
  #6  
Old April 24th 15, 03:12 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 878
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 22:38:57 -0500 "VanguardLH" wrote in
article
Acronis True Image (backup software, payware)
includes Try & Decide


This feature has been dropped in the latest release. Perhaps nobody used
it or perhaps Acronis couldn't get it to work right... Telling?
  #7  
Old April 24th 15, 11:14 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

Jason wrote:

VanguardLH wrote

Acronis True Image (backup software, payware) includes Try & Decide


This feature has been dropped in the latest release. Perhaps nobody
used it or perhaps Acronis couldn't get it to work right... Telling?


Perhaps Acronis wanted to focus their resources on all the other
bloatware they want to push (i.e., it's lureware in disguise), like
their cloud storage service.

I suspect they got too many tech support calls from boobs that don't
understand how disk virtualizing works. A call could be, for example,
from a user that wants to know what all their new or changed data files
disappeared after a reboot. They just can't figure out how to punch
holes in the security product, if it exists, to not virtualize disk I/O
to specified folders or that they should be saving data on a partition
other than the one for the OS that is getting protected.

Quite often software vendors will roll in a new but separate feature
that they realize later generates no revenue (it doesn't increase sales)
but does cost them for tech support. Easier to get rid of the unrelated
product than to support it. After all, something like Try & Decide is
not a function of a backup program. Sometimes vendors lose focus and
then later get back on track.

Acronis True Image 2015: Try and Decide Is Not Supported
https://kb.acronis.com/content/48608

It was, I believe, available up to the 2014 version. The lame excuse
that Acronis gives is to hide that they don't want to support the Try &
Decide feature. No one bought any Acronis product solely due to that
feature and it loaded them with tech support calls from users that are
ignorant on how such products work. Creating a full image before
installing software or making a change to the OS/app setup is NOT as
quick as redirecting all further disk I/O to a virtualized disk. Yes,
you could save an incremental backup but that's based on a chain of
other incremental backups going back to a full backup. The longer the
chain, the more fragile it becomes. Full backups were the only safe
means of ensuring a restore if a software install or "test" went badly.
If full image backups were the cure to restoring a host back to a prior
known state then disk virtualizing products would never have existed.
Backup programs were around decades before disk virtualizing products.

It's amusing that they even include their cloud storage as part of their
claimed alternative to disk virtualization. Have you ever tried to
restore an image of a partition from the multi-gigabyte sized file
stored in their (or any) cloud storage? You won't even get the
downstream bandwidth of downloading a file from a site when you attempt
to retrieve data from cloud storage. Unlike using a virtual disk that
takes only the time of a reboot to revert back to the real disk and
discard all changes made to the virtual disk, it can take hours to
restore from a full image on local storage and days to recover a full
image from cloud storage. They just pushed out some gobbletygook to
pacify their customers that whined about the loss of Try & Decide in the
2015 version.

I'm back on the 2013 version. I find it is cheaper to wait several
major versions before updating commercialware. Rarely does a new
version, or even several, have sufficient bang-for-the-buck for me to
spend my money on a new version. Obviously they need to change or add
to the product to have draw to customers well trained in the newer-is-
better sales mantra. Change just means different, not necessarily
better. They're selling a product. If the current version does
everything that I need, they have nothing they can sell me. That's why
some products are actually subscriptionware to force to a new version of
their product. Anti-virus software has been that way for a couple
decades. Other software vendors are jealous of that sales model and
more are jumping to that sales model.

Dropping Try & Decide probably has little effect on their sales. This
is similar to when ISPs dropped Usenet service. Yes, there were
customers that vowed to drop that ISP but it never happened (the number
was so tiny that the cost savings for the ISP far outweighed a puny
number of dissatisfied customers that actually left). Since the users
of True Image targeted that product as a backup solution, the loss of
Try & Decide probably went unnoticed by the vast percentage of their
customers, and those who did notice might've whine a bit but soon shut
up and focused on using TI as just a backup solution.

So Try & Decide is not an option if you want to get the latest (2015)
version of Acronis True Image. There are still other choices. However,
although slower, saving a full image is a means of testing unknown
software or letting users phuck with a host and then later do a restore
to revert the disk back to a prior known state.

It is unknown (to users) just where Acronis obtained the disk
virtualization technology. Often a company will contract with another
company to borrow technology to present as their own. I doubt Acronis
actually developed their own disk virtualization component. They got it
from somewhere else. If they got it from Returnil then it's obvious why
Acronis discontinued Try & Decide: Returnil discontinued their product.
Returnil still distributes System Safe but it really hasn't been
supported for a few years. Instead they focused their resources on
developing a whole new disk virtualization product: they went from
System Safe to QuietZone. There was (is) a free version of System Safe.
There is no free version of QuietZone. With Returnil investing no
resources on System Safe and with increased cost to obtain QuietZone,
anyone that contracted with Returnil for their disk virtualization
technology would rethink about providing that contracted code for free
in their own product. Since Try & Decide was not a revenue generator
for Acronis is why they dropped it. Knowing just who actually provided
the disk virtualization technology to Acronis might also reveal why
Acronis dropped their rebranded disk virtualization component.

I used to use Returnil System Safe for several years. When Try & Decide
showed up in True Image, I switched to using that. Neither one
precludes the need to backup.

I have not tried the Toolwiz disk virtualization products. I only know
they exist and others have use them. Microsoft once had their own disk
virtualization product called SteadyState but dropped it after a few
years of providing its download. Outsiders never really know the
rationale of why a company drops a product. Hell, insiders often don't
know why management makes the decisions it does. I was in several
technology companies and they buy/acquire software from other companies
but then just dropped it or never employed it in any of their products.
I worked several months getting an enterprise-level backup solution
configured, defined, documented, and ready to go that didn't use any
software our enterprise customers didn't already have that came in the
OS so it wouldv'e been a free solution to our customers and generated
good will towards our company; however, management dropped that project
with no explanation. I still got my salary since it was a side project
but it was frustrating to work with the sysadmin all that time and do
the testing to provide a robust setup and then just have it killed
without any explanation. Don't expect management to make logical
decisions. Too many times they behave like they do crack.

Disk virtualization allows quick restore to a prior known state.
Restoring from a full backup requires more time and more user
intervention. Quick reversion using disk virtualization is handy and a
good safety net but backups are still required.
  #8  
Old April 25th 15, 12:19 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 878
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

On Fri, 24 Apr 2015 17:14:12 -0500 "VanguardLH" wrote in
article
I was in several
technology companies and they buy/acquire software from other companies
but then just dropped it or never employed it in any of their products.

Been there.... :-(
  #9  
Old April 25th 15, 12:23 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 878
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

On Fri, 24 Apr 2015 15:07:08 +0000 "Stormin' Norman"
wrote in article

As for file storage, instead of allowing students to use flash drives to store
their work, you might consider having each student create a free Dropbox account
and manually upload / download their lesson related files.


That's a good alternative once the students get comfortable enough with
computers - most have little or no experience.

And thanks for all the pointers - my search horizons are expanding!

Jason
  #10  
Old April 25th 15, 01:00 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

.. . .winston wrote:

Jason wrote:
I presume there would be a userid associated with each thumb
drive. In other words, can what would normally reside in c:\users for
each student live on the USB drive? That would have to include the
Documents folders as well as local settings(?).

TIA,

Jason


One can't relocate 'what normally' resides in c:\users elsewhere.

Windows will object to any attempts to store a userprofile externally.


Perhaps true on the %userprofile% folder but not of the special
subfolders contained within it.

From what the OP said, it looks like he wants the users' *data* to be
stored somewhere other than under the default user profile folder.
Because programs are too often hardcoded to use a specific path
(although Windows is already using redirection via junctions for old
programs using the old paths) is why some subfolders, like AppData,
shouldn't get moved.

Windows itself provides easy and standard movement of the special
folders simply by right-clicking on them in Windows Explorer and going
under the Location tab. The AppData folder doesn't have that tab
because it really should not be relocated, but the Contacts, Downloads,
Favorites, Links, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos
subfolders do have a Location tab for moving where their contents are
physically store.

While moving those special folders to elsewhere is possible and even
made easy using the Location tab that Windows itself provides, I
recommend only moving to local storage (e.g., a partition on the same or
different disk than the OS partition which gets its own drive letter
designation). Do not move the special folders to networked or removable
media since it is entirely possible that location may not exist when
needed or expected to be available.

A problem that I foresee with moving the special folder is with
permissions (well, with the lack of them). Does having Windows move the
location of special folders also carry along the permissions on those
folders? That would require the move from an NTFS formatted partition
to another NTFS formatted partition to carry along the permissions from
one file system in one drive to the file system in another drive. Users
may not want their data files [easily] accessible by other users. The
%userprofile% folder has permissions to the user but not other users
(except for those in the Administrators security group) to help isolate
those files for privacy concerns. After using Windows to move the
special folders to another drive, I'd check the permissions on the new
folder matched those for the old folder. Then some user that was
copying everything under, say, D:\Users (which had subfolders by the
user's account name with the special folders under there) wouldn't end
up copying files for other users.

I would think moving the special folders to another drive (and assuming
those new folders got the same permissions as for the original folders)
would be all the OP has to do. It would be up to the users if they
wanted to copy their own data files to elsewhere by copying their files
to a USB drive. If the users really needed repeated and often access to
their data files but didn't want to have to buy USB sticks (and also
wear out the USB ports on the computers), I would think they could make
use of OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or some other cloud storage
service. They would create a folder (in their own special folder) that
was the local copy of the files to get synced to the cloud. I haven't
played with clients for cloud storage to know if they correctly isolate
the different user accounts or if another instance has to be installed
for each account. The users could then tell the sync client which of
their folders to include in a sync so they would have copies available
from the cloud via a webclient (web browser) or on their own computers
running the same sync client. No dragging around a USB stick and having
students damaging the USB ports.
  #11  
Old April 25th 15, 02:52 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 878
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

On Sat, 25 Apr 2015 00:15:20 +0000 "Stormin' Norman"
wrote in article

You are welcome Jason. I will be curious to see where you ultimately end up
with this.


You're not the only one! I have lots of experience in design and
development but little in sys administration (of Windows, anyway..).

Jason
  #12  
Old April 25th 15, 05:49 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
. . .winston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,345
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

VanguardLH wrote:
Jason wrote:

VanguardLH wrote

Acronis True Image (backup software, payware) includes Try & Decide


This feature has been dropped in the latest release. Perhaps nobody
used it or perhaps Acronis couldn't get it to work right... Telling?


Perhaps Acronis wanted to focus their resources on all the other
bloatware they want to push (i.e., it's lureware in disguise), like
their cloud storage service.


qp
Try and Decide as a stand-alone feature in Acronis True Image was
originally designed to help a user test a new system configuration, and
"decide" to go back to a previous configuration if something went wrong.
Acronis True Image 2015 is inherently a "try and decide" product, as
performing a full system image backup prior to installing and testing
any new software allows you to "decide" to go back to your previous
configuration. With our completely re-engineered user experience and
user interface, this process is similar to previous versions, and can be
performed either from a local backup or one stored in the Acronis cloud.
As such, the older try and decide feature was removed in Acronis True
Image 2015 as its no longer needed.
/qp


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps
  #13  
Old April 25th 15, 06:31 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

winston wrote:

qp
Try and Decide as a stand-alone feature in Acronis True Image was
originally designed to help a user test a new system configuration, and
"decide" to go back to a previous configuration if something went wrong.
Acronis True Image 2015 is inherently a "try and decide" product, as
performing a full system image backup prior to installing and testing
any new software allows you to "decide" to go back to your previous
configuration. With our completely re-engineered user experience and
user interface, this process is similar to previous versions, and can be
performed either from a local backup or one stored in the Acronis cloud.
As such, the older try and decide feature was removed in Acronis True
Image 2015 as its no longer needed.
/qp


Yep, the contents of the Acronis article which I gave a hyperlink. A
bunch of bogus crap because everyone knows restoring an entire partition
from an image backup is slower than just rebooting the computer.
  #14  
Old April 28th 15, 04:31 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 878
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

On Fri, 24 Apr 2015 19:00:15 -0500 "VanguardLH" wrote in
article
If the users really needed repeated and often access to
their data files but didn't want to have to buy USB sticks (and also
wear out the USB ports on the computers), I would think they could make
use of OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or some other cloud storage
service.


I'm not so worried about wearing out USB sockets as about the fact that
our users are not generally knowledgable enough to easily use cloud
services yet.
  #15  
Old April 28th 15, 08:25 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
. . .winston
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,345
Default Portable Windows user ID on a thumb drive

Jason wrote:
On Fri, 24 Apr 2015 19:00:15 -0500 "VanguardLH" wrote in
article
If the users really needed repeated and often access to
their data files but didn't want to have to buy USB sticks (and also
wear out the USB ports on the computers), I would think they could make
use of OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, or some other cloud storage
service.


I'm not so worried about wearing out USB sockets as about the fact that
our users are not generally knowledgable enough to easily use cloud
services yet.

Interesting. Many cloud services provide the option to save, delete,
manage files via Windows Explorer(Win7 and earlier) and File
Explorer(Win 8 and later).

Are those same users incapable of saving, deleting, and managing files
on USB sticks using Windows Explorer ?


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps
 




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