abillybob Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Hey Guys So some staff and students a-like have very slow login times and I think it's due to the Roaming Profiles we have, it always seems to hand on "User Profile" when loading the users area! I wanted to know whether or not I could just go into AD and leave the Profile box empty whether this would sort out my problem though I am worried about having hundreds of local user profiles sitting locally on the machine!? How do you guys do it and what would you recommend I do in this situation? Thankyou!!!
Badzeye Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Is it hanging on "waiting for the user profile service"? We had this issue when I first started here and had just moved to windows 7. In my case it resolving a DNS issue helped and then redirecting the user libraries from the users profile to their home drive also increased logon times. There are a number of things you can do to further reduce the profile size if you just search edugeek for "waiting for the user profile service" they will show up. Ultimately using local profiles will be easier if your staff do not move around. Pupils here have mandatory profiles which I followed a guide on here to set up and they work really well. I found offline files in windows 7 to cause the logon to hang on this same error message if it was enabled so I would check for the that on your machines if it is not needed.
3s-gtech Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 You can do it, but you may have some fun for a while removing the cached Roaming Profiles from some machines if they don't play nicely when switched. Easy enough really, just time. Local profiles are great if your teachers primarily use the same PCs. If you make sure that everything is redirected (AppData critically, but as much as possible should be redirected) then even that isn't a big issue. You may find drives filling up with profiles - there are GPOs to help clean these up, or delprof2, or some handy scripts are about. Students - don't use local or roaming profiles IME. Use mandatory - small footprint, wiped at logoff, fast, controllable. Hell, you can use mandatory profiles for staff but they may lynch you.
abillybob Posted May 21, 2014 Author Posted May 21, 2014 Hmmmm I am a little worried I don't want the computers to start going c-c-c-crazy on me and everyone has issues! I think I dod do it wrong as @3s-gtech said I should have used mandatory for the students and Local Profiles for staff! It's a shame it's not just as simple as switching from Roaming to Mandatory and Roaming to Local, without any risks of computers not liking it. I wish Windows would release a new OS then I'd have an excuse to re-configure the whole network again (this is what I feel like doing)!
3s-gtech Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Don't get me wrong - it's not too great a risk of it not working - it's just worth bearing in mind. Thing is, you can switch a few test users, try it, then switch a few more. Test, test, test.
computer_expert Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 We went from roaming to mandatory profiles - the only issue was with one user on one of the oldest XP boxes that had about 8 years worth of roaming profiles (don't ask!), but was resolved by nuking all the profiles from that specific machine.
abillybob Posted May 21, 2014 Author Posted May 21, 2014 So how would I go about converting our current Roaming Profiles to Mandatory would I have to go round every computer and delete all the profiles manually or not? @computer_expert what steps did you take in achieving this?
3s-gtech Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Convert - nope. You just change the Profile Path in AD. If anyone has issues logging on, delete their local profile, but you may not need to. Archive their roaming profiles in case there are files/settings etc (like their Favourites) stored in there that may not have been redirected.
cpjitservices Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Might be quicker just to reimage your machines to wipe profiles. I've never had a problem with Roamings, on XP and 7. I worked at a college that had thousands of users staff and students. I think the key was when machines were migrated from XP to 7, they were completely reimaged clean machines, and Disk Quotas (2GB Student, 3GB Staff) were inplace so that the profile didnt inflate. Redirects were in place for Documents (in profile), Desktop (in profile) and Start Menu (Global). AppData was also redirected to the profile. the .V2 folders were basically empty as everything was redirected into the profile. Mapped Drives were assigned to all accounts under AD to the profile. I've never used Mandatory before. How would that work if Desktops were redirected into the Profile... and the user saves files to the desktop (they all do it) ?
3s-gtech Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Depends on permissions. Generally, you set a MP and its sub-folders so that users cannot write to it at all. They simply wouldn't be able to save to the desktop, or if they did - the file would appear on everyone's desktop! It just made sure they were used to only saving in their Documents folder.
witch Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Is it hanging on "waiting for the user profile service"? We had this issue when I first started here and had just moved to windows 7. In my case it resolving a DNS issue helped and then redirecting the user libraries from the users profile to their home drive also increased logon times. There are a number of things you can do to further reduce the profile size if you just search edugeek for "waiting for the user profile service" they will show up. I would try this first before you go about getting rid of them. At the very least, if it improves things, it will give you some breathing space to really look into changing back to Mandatory Profiles and get all the information straight in your head
ozydave Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Removed all profiles (roaming an mandatory) from students some months ago not looked back. It's been a dream. Everything redirected via gpo. To remove old cached profiles on local machines look at delprof2 -works outstandingly well. Now wonder why I struggled for so long. Almost forgot what a student looks like with no profile resets :-)
PotNoodleTech Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Q for you guys who are using local profiles, but redirecting as much as possible - do you do all of the redirecting to the users home drive?
3s-gtech Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 For us, yes. No separate areas for any part of the profile.
computer_expert Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 So how would I go about converting our current Roaming Profiles to Mandatory would I have to go round every computer and delete all the profiles manually or not? @computer_expert what steps did you take in achieving this? There is a setting in group policy that got rid of most of the user profiles (Using Group Policy to delete cached copies of roaming profiles). the few that were stubborn were removed by rebooting and trying again or by using the utility in advanced system properties (Right click computer> manage > advanced system settings > settings (in user profile section)). Others were wiped out in the XP>Win7 process.
zag Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 (edited) Hey Guys So some staff and students a-like have very slow login times and I think it's due to the Roaming Profiles we have, it always seems to hand on "User Profile" when loading the users area! I wanted to know whether or not I could just go into AD and leave the Profile box empty whether this would sort out my problem though I am worried about having hundreds of local user profiles sitting locally on the machine!? How do you guys do it and what would you recommend I do in this situation? Thankyou!!! Yep this is what we do. Caused a revolution in our school and logins now take 20 seconds. Edited May 21, 2014 by zag
zag Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Q for you guys who are using local profiles, but redirecting as much as possible - do you do all of the redirecting to the users home drive? We only redirect the user area and IE favourites. Seems to work well. Desktop, start menu are redirected to a central location. 1
RobD Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 We use mandatory profiles for students then folder redirect for docs etc, this is the guide I used which was very good: How to create a Mandatory profile with Folder Redirections - RobinHobo.com
Sam_Brown Posted May 23, 2014 Posted May 23, 2014 In my case it resolving a DNS issue helped and then redirecting the user libraries from the users profile to their home drive also increased logon times. How did you redirect the libraries?
Griff Posted May 23, 2014 Posted May 23, 2014 (edited) How did you redirect the libraries? GPO for us User Configuration > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection > Documents Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone's folder to the same location) Path: \\servername\Pupils$\Users\%username% Options Grant user exclusive rights to Documents - Disabled Move the contents of Documents to the new location - Disabled Policy Removal Behavior - Leave contents Music Setting: Follow the Documents folder Pictures Setting: Follow the Documents folder Videos Setting: Follow the Documents folder Edited May 23, 2014 by Griff
Simcfc73 Posted May 23, 2014 Posted May 23, 2014 I redirect all profiles to C:\profiles where all the kiddie share one. Only staff roam. It gives an error when saying the redirect path but works.
Griff Posted May 23, 2014 Posted May 23, 2014 Link doesn't work Removed the image and added as text hopefully that makes sense ...
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