If you are using the Corporate version of Windows® Internet Explorer® Administration Kit 8 (IEAK 8), you can use IEAK Profile Manager in the following ways:

• Before Internet Explorer 8 is installed, you can configure a custom package using the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8 that allows you to update your users' computers automatically through an .ins file. By default, this file is named Install.ins, but you can rename it for each custom package.
  
  
• After Internet Explorer is installed, you can use IEAK Profile Manager to maintain browser configuration settings on your users' computers. With IEAK Profile Manager, you can open any .ins file, change settings, and save the file. You can also use IEAK Profile Manager to enable Automatic Configuration if you did not set up this feature before installation.
  
  

Before updating the configuration settings on your users' computers, copy the .ins file and the companion .cab files generated by IEAK Profile Manager to a working directory and test the configuration. After you validate the changes, copy the new .ins file to your production server. Automatic configuration then updates the configuration settings on your users' computers.

If you have users with different needs or if you want to change some users' configuration settings independently of others, you can create multiple auto-configuration .ins files. You can use IEAK Profile Manager to specify different configuration settings for each group and save them as individual <usergroup>.ins files, where usergroup is a unique name for each user group. IEAK Profile Manager automatically generates the companion .cab files. For example, you could specify a unique configuration for the Finance Department and save the configuration as Finance.ins.

	Note
	If you create multiple .ins files, make sure that your custom packages are configured to use the correct file.

To open and use IEAK Profile Manager

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Windows IEAK 8, and then click IEAK Profile Manager.

2. On the File menu, click Open, and then open the .ins file that you want to modify, or click New to create a new .ins file

3. Under either Wizard Settings or Additional Settings, double-click the item you want to update.

4. Edit the settings as needed.

5. On the File menu, click Save as.

6. Type the path to your .ins file, the URL where the .cab files for the custom package are stored, and the names of your .cab files if they differ from the defaults provided. The default location for saving the auto-configuration .ins file is the folder: <systemdrive>\<build>\Ins\<operating system>\<language>\.

	Notes
	You must run the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 8 at least once before starting IEAK Profile Manager. If the version number of the .ins file does not change, new .cab files are not downloaded. The version number combines the date the .ins file was modified and the number of times the file was revised.