User Desktop Preferences without roaming profiles

[ITGURU]

With wanting to remove roaming profiles to speed up logins, what does everyone use for end users when logging onto multiple machines to allow users to still see/keep their office recent documents list, pin folders to explorer which will travel with them across all computers they login to, etc.

Don't particularly want to just use local profiles as means their setup doesnt say consistent, then if they log in elsewhere things will not be the same.

thanks

[altecsole]

We redirect AppData to a server share.

[psydii]

Windows 10 and 11 with OneDrive is incompatible with roaming profiles, and so  after 17 years of using folder redirection, roaming profiles and CSC, we just walked away from those abilities.  Staff are mostly on 1:1 laptops or desktops at their desk  with files sync'd via OneDrive, web stuff sync'd via however Edge/Chrome does that, and the fact that most things are web apps these days, meant that the  impact was minimal. 

 

Once we moved to Windows 11, the recent files capabilities returned.

[DavR]

We have User Experience Virtualisation (UEV) still running in the background to roam some settings, although it's deprecated and unless there's something you really need from it, I wouldn't waste your time setting it up now, it's fiddly. It was superseded by User State Virtualisation (USV), which is the same idea but in Azure, but I don't think many people bothered with that.

 

On the whole, though, we just changed our attitude to it, and accepted local profiles. Things like recent files lists, are now local only. Desktop files are taken care of by OneDrive sync. You want your favourites to roam with you? Sign into the browser with your Google account. I think Office recent files list follows the logged in Office user automatically though, because I see the same file list at home and at work. 

 

The trick is to make the first logon and first run experience as painless as possible, so people don't realise they're doing first run every time they log on to a new PC. 

[Rob_D]

13 hours ago, DavR said:

The trick is to make the first logon and first run experience as painless as possible, so people don't realise they're doing first run every time they log on to a new PC. 

Out of interest, what things have you done to reduce that "first logon time"?

[synaesthesia]

As UEV has gone the way of the dodo, we just embraced local profiles as there's no enough reason to warrant many preferences sticking for people using shared devices which in our case is purely students. For additional needs, their profiles via GPO cater for anything extra required (screen scaling etc). Staff all have their own device so local profile just works wonders as is.

Everything else fully locked down - no access to any local drives/areas, desktop etc. Is this for staff you're looking at?

[mikes]

Yeah I just accepted the loss of functionality as well. Microsoft have designed it this way so we must use it this way!  I've found whenever I start implementing fixes and changes to the ways MS have "improved" their OS since 95+, you can bet there will be unforseen consequences or an update breaking it further down the line

[synaesthesia]

1 minute ago, mikes said:

Yeah I just accepted the loss of functionality as well. Microsoft have designed it this way so we must use it this way!  I've found whenever I start implementing fixes and changes to the ways MS have "improved" their OS since 95+, you can bet there will be unforseen consequences or an update breaking it further down the line

I think it's an age thing, but "unforseen consequences" only means one thing for me now.

 

[DavR]

1 hour ago, Rob_D said:

Out of interest, what things have you done to reduce that "first logon time"?

 

It's mainly down to first run of programs tbh, so using all the available GP settings to shut down the first run questions on Edge and Chrome browsers was a biggie. It's less about speed, more about reducing the number of dialogue boxes between the user and their objective. 

 

Apart from that, it's things like dismissing the first run messages, welcome screens, and "tick to stop showing this message" type popups that come with third party software, which are usually reg keys you can manipulate.

 

The OS side is fairly minimal, but we did do away with the "getting things ready for you" animation at the beginning. 

[mikes]

Yes that's what I have done in my environment basically instead. Stop the first run, setup, welcome type dialog boxes. When users sign into Chrome they get their saved passwords and favourites which is 95% what they want roaming anyway. Have to put in reg keys to stop nag boxes; I was once at an important presentation by our Head in front of a load of bigwigs and the Lenovo Driver Update popped up in front of her presentation. (To tell her that there were no new updates!)  So laptop users can customize their Windows if they want but tbh hardly any of them do these days anyway.  Win 11 is so user unfriendly I don't think many know you can

 

Part of the issue now is that modern software "insists upon itself", thinking updating itself it is more important than what you might actually want to use your computer for. (due to the devs Questionable Ethics, sorry 🤣)

 

[psydii]

Quote

..at an important presentation by our Head in front of a load of bigwigs and the Lenovo Driver Update popped up in front of her presentation

If you think you are important but your  PA doesn't ensure your laptop is up to date before the deadline for scheduled checks/updates hits... are you really that important?