hey, it was that other thread about the firewall and stuff the sparked my question.

well in my school i think we must have about 350 PC's. There are over 1200 Pupils and over 150 Teachers. so to save a big confusion they instroduced this new system. (i know it's old 'Tech' but still) You turn any pc on in the school and login using your username and password. so this means you can go on any of the hundreds of computers and all your personal files will be there. so how do they make it that you can login on any PC?

P. Toye

Via a server,
The server stores your account data, password, username data etc..
When you type in your username and password it chekcs if its correct with the server.

Basically.

so would they use another standalone PC with some sort of special software to manage it all?

Active Directory... (or Novell eDirectory)

Your credentials are stored on a central server (Directory server). When logged in, the OS (Windows) maps a drive with your personal files and/or sets the user profile folder to a network share which insures that your files and settings follows you everywhere you go.

Or... You are on a terminal client. In such case, you are not working on the computer you are on but control a session on the terminal server.

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