Scripting

Try creating a scheduled task on those machines to run at system startup. The command line will look something like this:

schtasks.exe /create /ru system /sc onstart /tn whatevername /tr "\"c:\whatevercommandyouwant\""

Keep in mind the escape characters if you do need to use quotation marks around the command path.

Stephane,

The old way to do it was with the wininit.ini - see here
My M.C.P. in Windows 95 still comes in useful, and it apparently still applies to Windows XP [:D]

But as your requirement is to remove a file out of each user profile then you just need a recursive search VB script - Here's the bones of something I've used in the past (grabbed from one of the vbs sites), you'll need to add your own error trapping etc. - there are plently of sites out there that will have other script samples.

You'll need to alter the file name and paths.


' Sample VB Script to remove a designated file (default is NORMAL.DOT) located in the profile folder for every user on the

' system. There is provision for exempting certain folders via the constant ProtectedUsers which is set to a comma separated

' list which can be altered according to your requirements

'

' You should alter constant DeleteProtectedUsers from FALSE to TRUE to delete *ALL* copies of the file regardless of profile

'



Const FileToDelete = "normal.dot"

Const AllUsers = "\All Users"

Const DeleteProtectedUsers = "FALSE"

Const TemplatesFolder = "Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP"

Const ProtectedUsers = "Default User,Administrator,All Users,NetworkService,LocalService"



Dim oFSO, oWSH

Dim sAllUsersProfile, oAllUsersFolder, sProfilesRoot, oFolder

Dim colFSOSubFolders

Dim protuserarray

Dim DeleteFlag



On Error Resume Next ' this is set because the designated file may be locked from deletion



protuserarray = Split(ProtectedUsers,",")



' Instantiate the objects



Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

set oWSH = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")



' Get the Allusers profile folder path first and from this determine profiles parent folder

'



sAllUsersProfile = oWSH.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%ALLUSERSPROFILE%")

Set oAllUsersFolder = oFSO.GetFolder(sAllUsersProfile)

sProfilesRoot = oAllUsersFOlder.ParentFolder



' Now enumerate all existing user profile folders



Set oFolder = oFSO.GetFolder(sProfilesRoot)

Set colFSOSubfolders = oFolder.Subfolders



' Now go through each existing user profile folder looking for the designated file to delete



For Each objSubfolder in colFSOSubfolders

DeleteFlag = "TRUE"

if oFSO.FileExists(sProfilesRoot & "\" & objSubfolder.Name & "\" & TemplatesFolder & "\" & FileToDelete) then

' Found the file, now establish whether containing folder is on the exempt list

if NOT DeleteProtectedUsers then

For Each element in protuserarray

if ucase(element) = ucase(objSubfolder.Name) then

DeleteFlag = "FALSE" ' mark this occurrence of the designated file as exempt from deletion

exit for

end if

Next

end if

If DeleteFlag then

' File was found in a folder that is not exempt, so go ahead and attempt to delete

oFSO.DeleteFile sProfilesRoot & "\" & objSubfolder.Name & "\" & TemplatesFolder & "\" & FileToDelete,TRUE

end if

end if

Next



' Clean up before exiting

set oFSO = Nothing

set oWSH = Nothing





If you run it as a AD startup script then there won't be a logged on user to prevent the file being deleted.

Hope this points you in the right direction,

Dunnpy

Oh, something I forgot to mention that you'll want to pay attention to if you're going to use either dunnpy's or my suggestion. You'll have to include something that will stop the task from running every time the computer starts up. If you're using a scheduled task, your script to delete the file should also delete the task. If you're going to use a group policy startup script, make sure you include some sort of registry flag to query so that the script does not continue to delete those files on every system restart.