Create Home Directories and Set NTFS Permissions with a Web Script

Help desks often are responsible for creating home directories and setting NTFS permissions. Here's a script that provides a Web form that your Help desk staff or a similar group can use to perform these common tasks. The Web form uses Active Server Pages (ASP), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), and the Scripting Runtime Library's FileSystemObject object. (If you're unfamiliar with these technologies, see the Web exclusive sidebar "Resources for the Script's Technologies.")

You can find the script HomeFolderPerms.asp and its style sheet, StyleSheet.css, in the Code Library on the Windows Scripting Solutions Web site (http://www.winscriptingsolutions.com). Here's a look at how HomeFolderPerms.asp works and how you customize the script and the scripting environment so that you can use the Web form in your Windows 2000 network.

Taking the Bird's-Eye View
The Web scripting environment needed to create home directories and set NTFS permissions from a Web form is fairly complex. The complexity results from ensuring that only authorized personnel can run the script. By default, any member of the Administrators group in the domain can run the script, but making all your Help desk staff members part of this group is unrealistic and unsafe. Thus, I designed the script and set up the scripting environment so that a small group of Help desk staff members have enough privileges to successfully run the script. I call this group the HelpDesk group. . . .