Using Automatic Configuration in a Corporate Setting

Automatic configuration enables corporate administrators to change settings globally after deploying Internet Explorer. You can use automatic configuration with multiple IEAK profiles and change settings for specific groups of users.

You create IEAK profiles with the IEAK Profile Manager; the profiles consist of .ins files and any custom cabinet (.cab) files associated with your package. You can have more than one .ins file, such as a Mkting.ins file for your marketing department and a Finance.ins file for your finance department.

To use automatic configuration, you must set the users' browsers to point to the location of the .ins file. To use multiple .ins files, you would need to change the automatic-configuration path for different groups of users or automate a server solution.

Changing Automatic-Configuration Paths

To change the path for different user groups, you can rebuild similar custom packages, each with a different automatic-configuration path. Another option is to change the path for a group of users after deployment, either by changing the path manually or by using a script.

Automating Server Solutions

You also can use automated server solutions, which enable you to use multiple .ins files without rebuilding your packages. A sample Active Server Page (.asp) file is provided in the \Toolkit\Corp subfolder of your IEAK program folder.

If you are using a Web server that supports Active Server Pages, you can modify the sample solution to fit your organization's needs.

To use the sample, assign users to groups, based on their needs. Then, create an .ins file for each group, such as Mkting.ins or Finance.ins. You can create as many user groups as you need.

On your automatic-configuration server, create global groups that correspond to your .ins file name (without the extension) - for example, IE_ groupname .

For example, the .ins file for the finance department might be Finance.ins, and the group name on your automatic-configuration server would be IE_finance.

Add the user names of your finance department to the global IE_finance group on your domain. Then, post your .asp files to the automatic-configuration server.

Procedures for working with the automatic-configuration sample are covered in the file Asphelp.htm, which is also in the Corp folder.

Another key feature of automatic configuration that you can enable is the automatic detection of browser settings. For more information about working with this feature, see Chapter 13 , "Setting Up Servers." For more general information about automatic configuration, see Chapter 21 , "Using Automatic Configuration and Automatic Proxy."

.