ChrisH Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 eek roaming profiles dont do it!!!! They are more trouble than they are worth and you dont need to resort to them these days with the various folder redirection you can use.
tarquel Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 They work fine here [roaming profiles] Also a little story regarding them - a pupil came up to me the other week saying he couldn't log on. Did all the usual checks and discovered that it was the profile. I was pushed for time so only did a quick delete of user.day in his home folder and removed all the folders from his profile directory. He logged on and they were recreated perfectly and on he went with no probs - that I know of. The only downside is a longer logon time but if isn't that much to ask is it really? lol Cheers Nath
Ric_ Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 They work fine here [roaming profiles] ... The only downside is a longer logon time but if isn't that much to ask is it really? lol Are you mad!?!? Imagine the scenario... It's 9am on a nice sunny Monday morning (first day back after holidays) and you have 200 kids and staff all deciding to log on for the first lesson of the day. You glance up at the switch behind you and notice an abundance of green and orange light. This is the transfer of approx 2GB of data (avg. of 10MB per user - a rather conservative figure) being transfered to your desktops! If you're using roaming profiles this will occur several times per day and you should also bear in mind that all this data must also be stored somewhere the rest of the time... 1500 * 10MB = 15GB of storage space that could be used a lot more productively. I mean, you redirect their desktops, start menus, etc. and you disable wallpaper, etc. So why the hell do you need to save the mandatory stuff in every users' share?
kingswood Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 Because (traditionally) profiles had My Documents and other folders connected with them, bringing down lots (hundreds) of profiles and their encumbent saved files etc was a real pain (thinking back to NT4 here). If you think of both methods for a moment, it seems to me that if user A has 300MB of profile data in their profile on logoff using NT and another the same amount using XP, all the data (300MB of it) on the NT machine is saved back to the server; however on the XP machine only files changed since logon are saved back to the folder. If you are using roaming profiles and the user pretty much stays on one machine all day every day, this is OK. An XP machine will just send back to the profile changed data files, and this might not amount to much. But if the user genuinely "roams" this isn't so good- because the first time they log on to a new machine their whole profile is downloaded to their machine. I understand this can be a bind (and a worry). But from my experience (and I may be wrong here) using intellimirror services such as redirected folders makes roaming profiles a lot more manageable. For example, just enabling redirected folders for user B above would mean that they can logon at any station and not have their My Documents folder brought down with their profile. Because students are made to save to My Documents and can't tinker with other windows settings, and because Application Data is also redirected this *seems* to stop a huge logon time at a new machine. In other words (if I'm not making sense) user B in my example above saves their files to My Documents, which is anchored at the server (a fixed location) giving the impression that they can roam from station to station and have access to their files when they do so, but leaving the contents of My Docs on the server (which is better for security and backups etc). I've tested this and it appears to work well, but if you have any points I'll listen Paul
tarquel Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 8O 8O All I said was "they work fine here" lol Its maybe how I configure it that helps it a little i.e. I *think* I've managed to have it so that it doesn't "download" the whole of the pupils home dir, only the hidden directory within it called "profile" Its a little ingenius I think on my part but its not fool-proof by any means. We are off topic now ppl, and should probably start a new thread for this if ya like Cheers, Nath
Ric_ Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 @Paul: The 'anchoring' of My Documents, etc. leads to my conservative prediction of an average of 10MB per profile. In a school environment, the nature of the environment leads to hot-desking where you can have as many as 10 users on one machine in a day. That is why it's best to delete the cached local copies (as these soon fill the tiny hard drives in older machines). With no cached profiles, the profile is pulled each time and you get extended logons. Besides, my point still stands that removing the roaming profiles will free storage space on your fileservers. If you are using roaming profiles, you have no right to complain about the amount of disk space being used!
tarquel Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 phew - bit heated is this lol I delete locally cached profiles Ric - you got me curious so I had a look at the size of a few profile dirs Some year 10 pupils - 2 @ about 2.5MB and 1 @ about 4.6MB Not too bad on space really I think, considering they can easily consume that much with a small publisher ("oh no! - he mentioed publisher again" someone cries) document. I'm ok in that we've only got about 60 pc's where people would be using them at the same time so for me, I don't notice it badly and they pupils have got used to it. I think they realise that its stable unlike the 98 clients where it logs on quickly, but that doesn't mean the [start] menu won't crash out on ya lol. Nath.
kingswood Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 Hi Ric. You have a good point- it might seem that this much traffic makes a difference and ultimately it *may* do so. Hard drive space on the server isn't a problem for us (hence the choice of profiles to use) because we have a shiny new Dell PE 2800 with three 160GB SCSI hard drives (probably too much space mind you!). Looking at Microsoft estimates of average traffic generated during a single XP logon to a 2000 server (roughly 1MB), I can see your point about logons taking ages to come across the LAN. I'm not in any way knocking what you are saying :oops: What I am planning on doing is knocking out the transfer of IE temp files (which cause a lot of traffic during logon/logoff) and taking the advice to heart about deleting locally cached copies of profiles on logoff. But seriously, if you think that in reality this isn't workable I am VERY open to suggestions. Can I ask how you cope with this- do you use local profiles with redirected folders etc? Thanks for your help and advice. Paul
MkII Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 LOL! This roaming profile question is excellent! I have roaming profiles here and I agree with everything Ric_ says. After all I can't really see what I gain. I don't want users to have settings saved. I have local copies disabled but still logon times are too slow - well i'd like it to be faster. And usually people want to log in fast if they're logging into a new machine [to them] - usually just to pint or similar. Are there any pifalls to not using roaming profiles? [1 vote to split thread]
kingswood Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 Hi Mark. Yep- perhaps we should move this to another section I think Ric made some great points and I've spent the latter part of tonight looking into this some more. I think you asked a good question too- are there any pitfalls in not using roaming profiles? To be totally honest, I think it's a case of horses for courses. On our upper site we use CSE Systems and they manage our network's software configuration (mostly). They use local profiles with redirected My Documents. It's quite complex, and logon times vary depending on traffic but probably average at three minutes. Would roaming profiles help here? I doubt it, although we could redirect Application Data and see some kind of small improvement. What I think happens is that with locally stored profiles you get to the point where you are worrying about disk management anyway, so you may as well centralise this and "anchor" all this stuff on the server, where you might have more space or could use quotas etc. Remember, the files and folders in "C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings" (a hidden folder) don't roam, and these tend to be the beasts in the picture- not only internet temporary files but application temp files as well. Store these locally (and after one month my own is at 2GB) and after a term you can what would happen! In a nutshell there are pros and cons to both methods of profiling. Ric has given me much food for thought (thanks Ric) as have all other contributors. The good thing is, we all learn. And I have. If in the future traffic becomes a problem, I could always switch to running local profiles and redirected folders. I think it would be fair to say that I will know after at least the first term back Cheers all- I'm enjoying this discussion hugely!! Paul
Ric_ Posted July 14, 2005 Posted July 14, 2005 :arrow: The above posts came from the 'What is...' topic that was split to save our sanity! Please continue the discussion, being as constructive as possible - keeping ranting to a minimum (I'm as guilty as anyone, I admit!)
Dos_Box Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Ahhh. Roaming profiles. I remember fondly the school in Garstang where teachers routinely had 2 GB of documents in their areas, all roaming, it got to the stage where no teachers could logon during a lesson because there was not enough time to download their user areas. Roaming profiles are evil and a lazy way to run a network which will eventually bite you in the bum if not corrected. What is so hard about mapping My Documents to their user area via a group policy FFS?!
StewartKnight Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Why not just have GP make the desktop the same where ever you are, map a network drive to the students areas, and then make them choose their own folder. This also means that group folders can be set for for say.. science. No roaming profiles, no large logons!
Dos_Box Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Thats basically how it should be. Fixed wallpaper (different colours per year group and for staff so you can see who is logged on as someone they shouldn't be). The My Documents folder is mapped to their user area and set up so as not to roam or be locally cached. The start menu is mapped with the default user profile aready edited to remove everything you don't want them to see. Anthing else is making hard work for yourself and increasing the network load.
Geoff Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 I use folder redirection for the start menu and desktops.
Dos_Box Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 'Tis the best way. Nice and minimal and gets rid of creating more problems on the desktop machines.
MkII Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 How do you fix wallpaper then? ...and how do you set the My Documents folder not to roam or be cached?? [i redirect start menu's only]
Dos_Box Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 In your AD group policy... My Documents to User Area: User Configuaration - Windows Settings - Folder Redirection - My Documents. Right-click My Documents and select Basic. In target Folder Location select Redirect to the following location then enter in the box Root Path the location to the users area e.g. \\servername\users\%username% . On the Settings tab untick Move the contents of My Documents to the new location. (important. Ensure the users areas have the same name as their username or you will have to rename them by hand in the users profile and this method will not work. The %username5 variable will automatically pick up the users logon name and map it to the variable). For Wallpaper: User Configuaration - Administartive Templates - Desktop - Active Desktop - Active Desktop Wallpaper. There are alot of fiddly little options here, but I would suggest you set Bitmapped Wallpaper only then cosult this article http://myitforum.techtarget.com/articles/15/view.asp?id=2008 for some more advice.
Geoff Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Offline caching is set in the shares properties. You can also override it globally or per share in the GPOs though (good for teachers laptops).
tarquel Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Thats basically how it should be. Fixed wallpaper (different colours per year group and for staff so you can see who is logged on as someone they shouldn't be). The My Documents folder is mapped to their user area and set up so as not to roam or be locally cached. The start menu is mapped with the default user profile aready edited to remove everything you don't want them to see. Anthing else is making hard work for yourself and increasing the network load. Thats pretty much how I have it As I've said before (I think) I have a hidden sub-folder called 'profile' in each users directory which holds all the profile data - I guess others have them seperate in a different location but I find its handy when it comes to permissions i.e. they are already set for the profile, tho I try tweaking it a bit etc... [small question here is can that folder be set to deny access if a user tries to browse it, but not in a way that will distrupt the system from accessing it?] Offline caching is set in the shares properties. You can also override it globally or per share in the GPOs though (good for teachers laptops). Thats what I need to do for our few laptops here - allow them to roam with the docs without loosing anything. I think all I've done is change the option of "deleting locally cached roaming profiles" off for the laptop's OU. Can you elaborate on the setting for us? Its slipped my mind a bit where it is? Globally that is - per share would be on fileserver wouldn't it. Bit tot much hassle methinks lol [....oo a teacher just gave me a pressie lol - tobacco - for working til 6-ish last night lol ...did tell her I was late in the morn..... ] Cheers Nath
Dos_Box Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 hats pretty much how I have it Smile As I've said before (I think) I have a hidden sub-folder called 'profile' in each users directory which holds all the profile data - I guess others have them seperate in a different location but I find its handy when it comes to permissions i.e. they are already set for the profile, tho I try tweaking it a bit Smile etc... But why? They DON'T NEED a profile! There is absoloutly nothng that should be stored for them!
Ric_ Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 For physical roaming with laptops, any re-directed folders are automagically synchrosnised (assuming it's an XP client). You simply put your laptops in a different OU that has a GPO telling it to cache local profiles. Easy as pie! - not a roaming profile in site!
GrumbleDook Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 hats pretty much how I have it Smile As I've said before (I think) I have a hidden sub-folder called 'profile' in each users directory which holds all the profile data - I guess others have them seperate in a different location but I find its handy when it comes to permissions i.e. they are already set for the profile, tho I try tweaking it a bit Smile etc... But why? They DON'T NEED a profile! There is absoloutly nothng that should be stored for them! We have a standard mandatory profile for the students, and roaming for staff ... folder redirection is b0rken atm ... but will be sorted over the summer to go to their home area. The problem we have with staff having offline folders is that they want to have everything in there ... and if they have music, video etc then it can be several GB that is trying to be synchronised over wireless ... not a good idea. So we go for a "work" folder, just inside the hard drive, and they are responsible for becking up key work onto their home area. Anyone who doesn't and loses work? They only have the problem once ... they learn from the mistake!
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