I manage IT for a small business with a couple locations (about 10-15 computers each). Mostly users just use online services but there are a couple desktop applications they need and at each site there is a common network share of files that they access. Up till now I have not setup a server (except for the common shared folder on one regular win7 computer at each site). I create an Admin and GeneralUser account on each computer since we don't have any need to give each user an account. So far this has worked alright. They login have a network share, go online and that's most of what they need.
We will be opening more sites and more computers. Therefore the basic setup/configuration stuff is getting too much to do on each computer (Setting up user accounts on each computer, installing software such as chrome on each computer, setting the default home page in the browsers, mapping a network drive, etc.)
My question: What is a good approach to managing this? The Windows server website is confusing and they have too many services to easily decide what will work. Will Small Business Server do these things? Is there better sotware to accomplish the same thing? Online servies would be even nicer since I have multiple physical sites, but am not familiar with any?
Answer
What you need is called an Active Directory domain. The most basic description that can be given of it is along the lines of "a distributed database which manages user accounts and policies across multiple computers, letting you administer them globally without the need to manually perform the same tasks on each single one, and with much better security". Of course, there is much more to it than this, but it's something good enough to start with.
While setting up a basic domain is not difficult at all, setting it up properly can get tricky, especially in a multi-site environment like yours. It can also (and should) involve multiple servers performing the role of domain controller, i.e. managing the domain operations and the user database; the bare minimum needed is a single server, but you'll want at least two of them for redundancy, and probably many more, because a standard setup for a multi-site environment involves at least one server per site.
There are literally tons of documentation around about Active Directory, as each and every aspect of Windows administration revolves around it; I strongly suggest you buy a book or two about Windows administration, and go on from there; I also strongly suggest you hire a consultant, because he'll be able to help you setting all up properly, giving you advices on design issues that you may not even know exist at all.
This is where everything starts:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731053(v=ws.10).aspx
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