Anyone moved to roaming profiles?

[Halfmad]

We're currently using local profiles and I'm tempted to (if I get time) move to roaming profiles. I'm just curious as to what problems people have encountered when doing this in the past.

 

Anyone had any specific problems or horror stories to tell? I have a very limited amount of time this summer to do something like this so I don't really want to mess it up!

 

Any advice greatly appreciated!

[Scotmk]

Only staff have roaming profiles here, students have local, but they get there shared drive and all the programs they require are in a program group which they all have access to.

[marco84]

I once had a teacher with a roaming profile who complained that logon was taking a long time. After looking into it, it became apprant that he had put a series of large files on his desktop (3Gb). Just one thing to be aware of.

I would have though folder re-directions would be a better solution?!?!?!

[Quackers]

We originally had roaming profiles, but the ICT teachers hated the way the kids could move things around , and it confused them when my computer was not in the default place on the desktop, so they requested they had fixed desktops, so roaming profiles were removed.

[ctbjs]

No desktop and folder redirection works a treat. We provide a network share of all the icons they need for the start menu and redirect this and that is all they see.

[webman]

CC3 here so roaming profiles... no problem what so ever.

[ruggie_uk]

I give them roaming profiles but folder redirection for desktop icons, that way they can change background picture etc etc, but their desktop icons are static.

Works well, then I use loopback processing so that if they are in the suite, they get a seperate customised desktop specific to the programs used in the suite.

[craiglay]

I'm moving most pupils profiles to mandatory in my primaries as they're easier to manage once set up. I also have start menu and desktop redirection with mandatory profiles in one school.

 

Teachers tend to have local profiles on their laptops as they're not generally on the domain. Teachers and roaming profiles and laptops (esp wireless) is a recipe for disaster as most insist on having >1GB on their desktops!!! Folder redirection on laptops may prevent access to their desktops when offline though.

 

Craig

[mrforgetful]

Mandatory Profiles downloaded from the servers when they log on.

[chrbb]

I've had problems with roaming profiles on networked teacher's laptops with teacher's reorganising folders at home and then they revert back to how they were when the teacher logs back onto the network, we've also had corupted profiles with printers missing etc. Some teacher's have got round this by hibernating their laptop and never rebooting.

We've doing away with roaming profiles and using group policies instead.

[mrforgetful]

You tried stopping Profiles on laptops? There's a policy to 'Only Allow Local Profiles' which is set on our Laptop OU.

[mullet_man]

You tried stopping Profiles on laptops? There's a policy to 'Only Allow Local Profiles' which is set on our Laptop OU.

 

Does this update the profile on the server at logoff?

 

We use roaming profiles, to cut them down we use folder exclusion, and just back up on the server the Desktop and My Documents. Some complain as they have loads of massive files in their profiles.

 

We tried Folder Redirection and it was a problem for use, whenever users tried to save documents while disconnected it would freeze the laptops.

[mrforgetful]

It's so long since I set it up I'm not sure of the specifics but I believe it just stops taking any notice of any Profile specified in Active Directory, and pretends that box is empty.

[chrbb]

If I set 'only local profiles' on the laptops what would be the point in having roaming profiles. Wouldn't that mean that when the teacher logs on and off on the school network their roaming profile on the server wouldn't be updated?

 

The rest of the staff use the computers in the suite and save their work to their area on the server.

 

Our system was set up to maintain a consistent 'look' no matter which computer you use - which can be done in GPO.

[mrforgetful]

The same reason we use our system, but as the laptops have none of the network programs and teachers save their work on C: drive, a lot of policies for laptops differ to standard PCs.

 

We block the profiles from laptops because they're not needed for us.

[Bobo]

My primaries and few small secondaries have mandatory profiles and folder redirection for everyone.

[ZeroHour]

We are all roaming and have never been mandatory for everyone and have never really had any profile issues.

[ranj]

our school were roaming but have now gone to mandatory profiles for pupils.

 

Our teachers are still on roaming profiles

 

Had major issues with logon times when the whole school would log in and so scraped them.

 

The network is soo much quicker now. Seem to have less profiles issues as well.