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Application: Microsoft Internet Explorer Administration Kit 6 with Service Pack 1 Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP
It's the truth with most applications that just because you've installed it on a system doesn't mean you can walk away and leave it alone. There are often minor (some times major) tweaks and adjustments you have to make to fine-tune its performance or to get it to work with a new network or computer configuration. Internet Explorer 6 is no different-after you install it, there will come a time when you need to modify its settings; for example, by changing proxy server settings, adding a URL for a custom home page, or tightening security. You could visit every desktop to make the change, or you could create a single file with the new settings and configure IE 6 to check for the file and apply the settings automatically. (We don't have to ask which option you'd prefer.)
In the November 2003 issue, in part 1 of this series, we showed you how to use the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) to create a custom installation of Internet Explorer 6 (IE 6). In this article, we'll show you how to use another IEAK component, Profile Manager, shown in Figure A, to create files with custom settings that you can put in a network share so IE 6 can reconfigure itself and save you the time and expense of deploying the same settings manually.
A handy tool for your collection
In this article, we'll show you how to use Profile Manager to reconfigure an existing installation package created using the IEAK Customization Wizard. We'll show you how to open the package in Profile Manager and how to change the IE 6 settings. We'll also show you how to automate updates to IE 6 so your users will have the latest settings whenever they open their browsers. While you can use Profile Manager to create new installation packages, we'll focus on using Profile Manager to modify existing packages to provide updates to existing installations.
Why you might need Profile Manager
Profile Manager is the IEAK component you use to update the IE 6 installation package. It's installed by default when you install IEAK...