Logon Script FAQ This FAQ section includes answers to most frequenty asked questions when using FastTrack Logon for logon scripts. Q: My Logon Script didn't execute A: If the script does not execute, there can be numerous reasons. First understand that FastTrack Logon works exactly the same as all other login scripts like bat files or vbs scripts. If FastTrack Logon does not execute, a bat file or a vbs script will not execute either. You locate the script or executable on the domain controller and assign a logon script to users. If you are not sure how logon scripts are assign and replicated, take a look at this technet article.

Q: The explorer started before your prelogon has finished

A: This can happen only on locked down clients (user is not admin) older than Vista. This is because not waiting for the logon script to finish is default on Windows XP, NT4 and 2000 and it is not possible to overrule on the machine without admin rights.

You can solve this once and for all by setting the group policy "Run logon script synchronously" under "User Configuration->Administrative Templates->System->Scripts" to "Enabled". Alternatively you can logon on once on each computer as an administrator that has ftlogon as logon script. Ftlogon will attempt to set the machine setting on machines older than vista, if the user is an administrator.

Q: My anti virus program blocks my logon script

A: If your anti-virus policy blocks exe files from your domain controllers, we strongly recommend that you disable this policy. If this is not possible for political reasons, there is a workaround although it is not a recommended solution. You can rename FTLogon.exe and FSH.exe to FTLogon.cmd and FSH.cmd and change the EngineExe parameter in FTLogon.ini to FSH.cmd. This will work, but must be last resort if you have no other options. Remember that the users' Logon Script must now point to FTLogon.cmd instead of FTLogon.exe.

Q: Can I customize FastTrack logon?

A: You can, but there is no need to, unless you have alternative preferences regarding the location of client files. Taking a closer look at the package, you will find that it basically contains one exe file in the root, one configuration file for the exe and a binary folder. Actually all FastTrack Logon can do is more or less just to synchronize changes from one folder on the server to another folder on the client and execute the scripts. We need to synchronize the files to client to save bandwidth instead of running a fairly large exe (fsh.exe) directly off a network server every time someone logs on. So with FastTrack Logon, you only transfer less than 50 kb of data from your domain controller plus any changes in the binary folder any time a user logs on.

If you take a look at the configuration file FTLogon.ini, it contains some default choices:

[Settings] ServerDir=fshbin ClientDir=[LocalAppData]\FastTrack EngineExe=FSH.Exe PreLogonScript=[LocalAppData]\FastTrack\Prelogon.fsh PostLogonScript=[LocalAppData]\FastTrack\Postlogon.fsh TestFrameworkInstalled=false FrameworkInstaller=

PreLogonScript refers to a script that is executed before the explorer starts and PostLogonScript refers to a script that is executed after explorer starts. It is a good idea to use the prelogon script, because you know for sure that the user cannot "disturb" anything you might do here, like locking files you want to backup, opening programs that disturbs installations, etc. Observe that you can overrule the ability to start the logon script synchonously with your group policies, so be sure you don't actively turn off the "Run logon scripts synchronously" in your group policies.

ClientDir is the location on the local disk, where server files are synchronized to. You can generally use [LocalAppData], [ProgramFilesDir], [WinDir] and [TempDir] for replacement of the actual values of these or you can use a "hardcoded" path that exist on all computers. Remember that the logon script runs in the users context, so the user has to have write access. LocalAppData is recommended, since this is the only place non-admin users always have default write access on all operating systems out-of-the-box. If you use LocalAppData, files are synchronized once per user per computer. If you have an area on all client disks that all users can write to, you can use that instead to make sure files are synchronized only once per computer.

The "ServerDir" is a repository folder for anything you want to synchronize to all clients. You can put anything you like in it, including files that are not at all related to FastTrack, and if you upgrade the engine, you just overwrite the exe on the server and it will automatically replicate to the clients. You can also make subfolders and everything you delete, will be remove from the clients as well. FastTrack Logon will also associate fsh files with the FastTrackEngine, so you don't need to specify fsh.exe in the shortcuts you may create for the user, which ensures that you can move your client directory without have problems with shortcuts.

EngineExe refers to the FSH.exe to execute - if you prefer the exe to be located deeper under the fshbin folder, you can prefix it with an additional path. You can copy ftlogon.exe and the configuration file to something else and have multiple configurations. The configuration used is the one with the same name as the exe, so you can make all the configurations you like by renaming and copying the two files. In this case you must remember to use different ClientDir and ServerDir to avoid conflicts. However, you will probably not need this, because each group policy in sysvol has its own folder.

Q: Are there any client prerequisites?

A: The .net runtime 2.0 is required to be installed on your workstations. Under normal circumstances, this would always be the case, since this is a very common component and it is preinstalled in the operating system of Windows Vista and all never operating systems. For the runtime not to be installed in each workstation would require that it is pre-vista, that windows update is disabled and that they don't already have an application that uses .net runtime 2.0. So most likely, this is not relevant for you, but if you don't have .net runtime on all workstations, we provide a way to do it, assuming a local administrator logs on at least once.

The settings "TestFrameworkInstalled" and "FrameworkInstaller" tells the FastTrack Logon to test if the .net framework is installed or not. If you use "true" for "TestFrameworkInstalled", you must also provide a path for the .net runtime. You must download the exe file here and place it either in the fshbin directory or somewhere on your network. If you use "fshbin" as the source of fsh.exe, you can place it there and use "FrameworkInstaller=fshbin/NetFx20SP1.exe" (without the quotes). We recommend that you make sure that all newly installed workstations has the framework and then remove the setting again once all computers have the framework.