Acceptable logon times?

[themightymrp]

@kennysarmy - do you use any kind of folder redirection for the profiles? We redirect almost everything except for AppData and even that is trimmed down in our student profile (we us a mandatory roaming profile for the kiddies). My Student.V2 profile is only 1.76Mb in total and logon times are maybe 10 seconds for them, even on slow machines!

 

Staff can be waiting up to 30 seconds but their profiles aren't mandatory and so can grow up to 40 - 45Mb in size

[kennysarmy]

@kennysarmy - do you use any kind of folder redirection for the profiles? We redirect almost everything except for AppData and even that is trimmed down in our student profile (we us a mandatory roaming profile for the kiddies). My Student.V2 profile is only 1.76Mb in total and logon times are maybe 10 seconds for them, even on slow machines!

 

Staff can be waiting up to 30 seconds but their profiles aren't mandatory and so can grow up to 40 - 45Mb in size

 

Hi,

 

Yes for staff and students we redirect the following:

 

Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone's folder to the same location)

 

Path: \\server\DESKTOPS\Pupils64\StartMenu\programs

 

Grant user exclusive rights to Desktop Disabled

Move the contents of Desktop to the new location Disabled

Also apply redirection policy to Windows 2000, Windows 2000 server, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems Disabled

Policy Removal Behavior Leave contents

 

Documents

Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone's folder to the same location)

Path: %HOMESHARE%%HOMEPATH%\Documents

 

Grant user exclusive rights to Documents Disabled

Move the contents of Documents to the new location Disabled

Also apply redirection policy to Windows 2000, Windows 2000 server, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems Disabled

Policy Removal Behavior Leave contents

 

Music

Setting: Follow the Documents folder

Pictures

Setting: Follow the Documents folder

Start Menu

Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone's folder to the same location)

Path: \\server\desktops\Pupils64\StartMenu

 

Grant user exclusive rights to Start Menu Disabled

Move the contents of Start Menu to the new location Disabled

Also apply redirection policy to Windows 2000, Windows 2000 server, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems Enabled

Policy Removal Behavior Leave contents

 

Videos

Setting: Follow the Documents folder

 

 

But I tested with this policy enabled or not and it made only a few seconds difference to logon times....

 

Can I ask how you trim down app data in your student profile?

[kennysarmy]

I've just run a scan on a typical test student account an the profile in C:\users and only found one large file:

 

WebCacheV01.dat in C:\Users\5023\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WebCache\ 33 MB DAT File 27/01/2015 09:09:00

[themightymrp]

The profiles once logged into a machine may be larger yes, this is because it combines your roaming profile with the local machines Default User. The way I have trimmed down mine is to use the "Exclude directories in roaming profile" group policy setting (User --> Admin templates --> System --> User profiles)

 

A big problem for me initially was that the AppData\Local and AppData\LocalLow were roaming with the profile when they shouldn't!! I added these to the exclusions and also a number of subfolders of the AppData\Roaming folder.

 

You can add subfolders to the exclusions simply by inputting them like this:

 

AppData\Local;AppData\LocalLow;Appdata\Roaming\Dropbox;Appdata\Roaming\Adobe etc etc

 

Obviously test some programs to make sure they don't screw up but I found that most subfolders were safe to exclude and so reduced the profiles massively. I had a few issues with cookies and temp internet files getting stuck in the profile too and posted my fix here:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-server-2008-r2/108941-roaming-profie-oddities.html#post1127181

[Sagima]

Win7 x64, ssd, i3. Ours are 17 seconds for first logon

[kennysarmy]

The profiles once logged into a machine may be larger yes, this is because it combines your roaming profile with the local machines Default User. The way I have trimmed down mine is to use the "Exclude directories in roaming profile" group policy setting (User --> Admin templates --> System --> User profiles)

 

A big problem for me initially was that the AppData\Local and AppData\LocalLow were roaming with the profile when they shouldn't!! I added these to the exclusions and also a number of subfolders of the AppData\Roaming folder.

 

You can add subfolders to the exclusions simply by inputting them like this:

 

AppData\Local;AppData\LocalLow;Appdata\Roaming\Dropbox;Appdata\Roaming\Adobe etc etc

 

Obviously test some programs to make sure they don't screw up but I found that most subfolders were safe to exclude and so reduced the profiles massively. I had a few issues with cookies and temp internet files getting stuck in the profile too and posted my fix here:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-server-2008-r2/108941-roaming-profie-oddities.html#post1127181

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Our setup is Roaming profiles but in A.D. there is no entry in the profile tab : profile path.

 

Settings per user are all done vie Group Policy.

[PotNoodleTech]

Thanks for your reply.

 

Our setup is Roaming profiles but in A.D. there is no entry in the profile tab : profile path.

 

Settings per user are all done vie Group Policy.

 

That's local profiles then.

[clockend25]

I think he means the profile path is specified in the GPO. We have the same setup here.

[kennysarmy]

That's local profiles then.

 

Yes. Sorry -

 

My background is civil engineering - that's my excuse

[kennysarmy]

I think he means the profile path is specified in the GPO. We have the same setup here.

 

No - I believe it is local profiles being created - I inherited an XP system that did it that way and when moving to windows 7 - just kept it as is.

 

Perhaps when we move to windows 10 we will have an opportunity to look at this again and perhaps significantly speed up logon times if mandatory profiles are the way forward...

 

I'm doing some reading.....

[themightymrp]

Do you have a setting in your group policy for setting a location for roaming profiles? It would be under:

 

Computer config --> Admin templates --> System --> User Profiles --> "Set roaming profile path for all users logging onto this computer"

 

If after checking all of your GPO's you don't have this set, then you are using local profiles. If you DO have this set though, my above folder exclusions will still apply because all of those settings are set inside the group policy

[kennysarmy]

Do you have a setting in your group policy for setting a location for roaming profiles? It would be under:

 

Computer config --> Admin templates --> System --> User Profiles --> "Set roaming profile path for all users logging onto this computer"

 

If after checking all of your GPO's you don't have this set, then you are using local profiles. If you DO have this set though, my above folder exclusions will still apply because all of those settings are set inside the group policy

 

Nothing set so it's local profiles....

 

Can't see a downside to this though as all my custom settings can easily be set using group policies and folder redirection...

 

Apart from possibly speeding up logon times, what other benefits are there to mandatory or roaming profiles....

[themightymrp]

Not much I suppose. Just a more 'generic' experience across machines. It's probably worth having a mandatory roaming profile for all students to use so that no changes can be made once they log off. We use roaming profiles for staff but they have a little more leeway with regards what they can adjust.

 

If you want a read-up that cuts out a lot of the jargon (and has pictures ) then this site is pretty good:

 

Mandatory Profiles Solution for Windows 7 | K-5 Computer Lab

[kennysarmy]

Not much I suppose. Just a more 'generic' experience across machines. It's probably worth having a mandatory roaming profile for all students to use so that no changes can be made once they log off. We use roaming profiles for staff but they have a little more leeway with regards what they can adjust.

 

If you want a read-up that cuts out a lot of the jargon (and has pictures ) then this site is pretty good:

 

Mandatory Profiles Solution for Windows 7 | K-5 Computer Lab

 

 

Many thanks for your posts....

 

Horses for courses I guess - the article does look good (with the pictures ) but I don't want to fix something that is n't broke....logon speeds are pretty acceptable on our better PC's and it's not been a wasted two days as I've satisfied myself that nothing during our logon experience is any single culprit when it comes to longer logon times on older slowly computers.

 

I will however ensure I take a look at other ways to set up user profiles when we migrate to Windows 10...

 

Cheers