A few questions about user logins on Windows 2000

The company that I work for has just implemented Windows 2000 Server. They choose to have an external company install it for them and we have found several features that now no longer exist having been on a novell network.

The users have a variety of machines be it Win 95, 98, 2000, XP, ME.

How do you send global popup messages to all the computers?
How do you prevent a user bypassing the user name, password and domain screen? (Users are logging on to a Microsoft Client Network)
Lastly after a user has logged in through the username, password and domain screen, they then get presented with the usual windows screen asking them to login to the computer for settings etc. How do you get rid of that screen?

Thanks for any help and sorry for the list.

i maybe able to help with the first one. Go to the command prompt and type "net send /?" (with out the quotes).

sorry, for 9x machines, "winpopup" needs to be running and on nt based ones the "messaging service" needs to be activated.

there is no reliable way

you can prevent (most) users from bypassing login screen by using "policies" - and the "policy editor". it is on your windows cd somewhere or you can download it from ms.com (poledit.exe).
maybe also look at "tweakui"

for your last question: set the local password of the user to be the same as the network password - if i understood you correctly.
what do you mean "for settings"?

Because Win 95, 98 were home products Microsoft created the ability for users to have profiles on machines. Thus I'm trying to get rid of the profile logon.

Why is that when we were previously on a Novell network it was possible to send a message to all the machines and now that we have moved over we have lost this function?

Thanks

you cannot get rid of the local logon.
you must set the local password the same as the network password, then windows won´t ask a second time. for disabling user´s ability to change their settings, look at the "policy editor" i told you about earlier. its a nice tool for network admins...

another possibility: move the profiles to the server (again poledit) and put write protection on them. then users´ changes should be discarded too (untested...).

Seems like Novel´s network client implements the message feature. For microsoft, as told, you need a winnt based system (enable message service). for 9x systems you can put winpopup in the autostart folder and tell users not to close it.

or write your own winpopup client and make it un-closable. this should not be too hard... do you know visual basic, c/win32, delphi or some other programming lang.?