How to Use Windows Logon Scripts

Such an older IT manager i've been utilising Windows logon scripts for more years to simplify managing my workstations and user sign ins. Making logon scripts for your Windows domain is a fairly direct process that can very simplify your management issues. Logon scripts run to be used principally for mapping network drivers and printers but finally you can run just about any process from a logon script.

The first command you'll make use of when building a log-in script is the "net" command. This command can perform many different projects, to get an idea just pull up a command line and type in "net /?" without the quotes and press the enter key. You'll be greeted by a whole host of sub-commands that can be used with net. In fact there are 21 different sub commands, but for nowadays we'll only focus on the more pertinent ones.

The main sub-command applied with net will be use. Use allows you to connect to shares on servers and other workstations and map them as local drives. This will allow your users to put in files on the network really easily without them needing to know which server or servers the actual files are stacked away on, making network management issues very easy. I should mention that the downside to mapping network drives does cause a lot of network chatter since the drives are continually connected. An option for low bandwidth situations such as remote offices connecting to centralized servers would be creating a shortcut which only connects when the user actually opens it up.

Other one of my favorite net sub commands is send. Send allows you to send a message to any or all systems on the entire network or Windows domain, it even allows you to pick which computer or domain. At present when you've an emergency or any kind of problem that needs the immediate attention of all your users on the network you can send them a simple little pop-up window with a message on there computer screen. For the net send command pops up a window on the screen it draws the users immediate attention instead of sending them an email that they may not notice at once.

When you've mastered these two commands then start exploring another options such as time, view or statistics. The time command used to be a useful tool for synchronizing time across a domain back in the Windows NT days before network time protocol services where built in. Net view is a nifty command that will allow you to display shares on a computer, network or domain. You should also keep in mind that you can pipe the results into text files for advanced data file parsing or scripting tasks.

At last if you need a deeper explanation of a specific net sub command simply type in net help. You will find that just this only little command used in conjunction with domain login scripts attached to your user accounts can really simplify a lot of network management headaches.