User profiles question.

[Phill Harvey-Smith]

Hi,

I help administer a network of Windows XP machines, connected to some Novell
Netware 6.5 servers, administered with Zenworks 7, in a UK university
department.

We have roaming profiles enabled whcih can be controled in the normal ways,
ntuser.ini, registy key, or a GPO (delivered by Zen), which all seems to
work, except that to try and pear down the amount of data copied back and
farwards we have to have a big long list of exclusions to what is to be
copied.

This has the significat disadvantage that if a new app is installed that
creates lots of / big files in the Application Data or sub folders, these
will get copied by default, whcich more often than not leads to the profile
becoming corrupt.

Is there a way that we can do the inverse, have the default being nothing
roams, and we specify the directories that we want to roam, so that new
things don't automatically get copied ?

Note, before anyone says that this is a Novell problem, the actual roming is
happening using the standard Microsoft methods

Cheers.

Phill.

 

[Anteaus]

It is a fact that roaming profiles are a tremendous performance-hit, even on
relatively small networks, let alone on a campus. That, and they end-up
leading to heavy restrictions on users' activities, in order to keep profiles
small. Personally I avoid them if at all possible.

I think the first question to consider is whether you need roaming profiles.
This is not an easy one to answer without an in-depth look at what programs
are in use and where they store data. However, with 'network aware'
programs, folder redirection is often a far more efficient method. In many
cases user-specific data can be put onto a drivemapping which changes ona
per-user basis, using the %username% environment variable in a logon script.

Though, I always find that Outlook is the thorn in the side of the network
admin as far as redirection is concerned, since it is NOT a proper
network-aware program, and cannot load its data and settings from a
standardised network location, as can better-behaved email clients. There
are ways round this, but they are not simple.

 

[Phill Harvey-Smith]

It is a fact that roaming profiles are a tremendous performance-hit,
even on relatively small networks, let alone on a campus. That, and
they end-up leading to heavy restrictions on users' activities, in
order to keep profiles small. Personally I avoid them if at all
possible.

I think the first question to consider is whether you need roaming
profiles. This is not an easy one to answer without an in-depth look at
what programs are in use and where they store data.

Yes we are indeed considdering this at the moment as well, our situation is
complicated by the fact that we have some users who are effectivly static,
in as much as they have their own PCs (mostly the academic/support staff).
However we also have people who have no fixed machine, and use a combination
of open access and lab based machines (the students).

However, with
'network aware' programs, folder redirection is often a far more
efficient method. In many cases user-specific data can be put onto a
drivemapping which changes ona per-user basis, using the %username%
environment variable in a logon script.

Yeah we have tried his with some points in the past bu this has the definate
disadvantage that people with laptops who also use them off campus, then
cannot access their data.

Though, I always find that Outlook is the thorn in the side of the
network admin as far as redirection is concerned, since it is NOT a
proper network-aware program, and cannot load its data and settings
from a standardised network location, as can better-behaved email
clients. There are ways round this, but they are not simple.

Yea and unfortunatly this is what most of our users have (as the university
is now running outlook/exchange as it's main mail system, which is alas
something I have no control over ), though a few of the more enlightened
of us are accessing it via thunderbird....

Cheers.

Phill.