Win 7 Local profiles with redirection, slow login and occasionally missing work

[IT_Man_Dan]

Good Morning all,

 

We are running Win 7 clients and are using local profiles with redirection for start menu, folder redirection etc.

 

Login can be rather slow on the clients and also on the odd occasion a user logs in and finds that certain work is missing or has a different modified date in their home area to what it should be, when you actuallty check their home folder on server it is how it should be and if they log into another workstation it loads correctly. Sometimes (rarely) the redirection also fails although the GPO to wait for network is configured.

 

I've set the GPO to delete cached roaming profiles locally, will this help?

If I manually delete the users profile from the machine it seems to fix the issue of missing/incorrect work but doesn't then always recreate the local profile?

 

Can anyone shed any light on this situation please as I'd like to resolve it asap?

 

Many thanks

[themightymrp]

You need to disable 'Offline Files' which can be done through Group Policy. It also helps to disable the ability to cache files for the share by looking at the share properties on the server itself

[gshaw]

Thought with 7 the GPOs have no effect on the Offline Files service?

 

It seems to be more of a hindrance than a help from the amount of threads I see caused by Offline Files, does anyone have a setup they're actually happy with that has it enabled?

[IT_Man_Dan]

Thanks for your reply,

 

In our GPOS: we already have the following configured:

 

Computer config>Admin Templates>Network/offline files:

 

Prohibit user configuration of Offline files Enabled

Remove 'Make Available Offline' Enabled

 

User config>Admin templates>Network/offline files:

 

Prohibit user configuration of Offline files Enabled

Remove 'Make Available Offline' Enabled

 

Is there other GPO's I need to configure to disable offline files?

 

Thanks

Edited December 11, 2012 by IT_Man_Dan

[themightymrp]

I also have:

 

Computer config --> Admin templates --> Network --> Offline Files --> Allow or disallow use of Offline Files ----- Set to disabled

 

I then disable the ability to cache files on the share itself on the server. If each user has their own shared folder i.e. \\server\username$ then you can create a .cmd script which will set them for you. You can then run it on the server from an elevated prompt. Something like the following:

 

net share user1$ /cache:none

net share user2$ /cache:none

net share user3$ /cache:none

net share user4$ /cache:none

[IT_Man_Dan]

Ahhh, Brilliant thanks, I've just disabled that on the student policy and will see how I get on.

 

Do you reckon that will just solve the home directory issue or also the occasional incorrect redirections/start menu issues also?

 

Thanks

[Michael]

The Offline Files GPOs do not work with Windows 7. The only way is to disable the Offline Files service, which you can do via:

 

Computer Config > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > System Services > Offline Files - Disabled

 

Please note you need to install RSAT on a Windows 7 workstation to achieve the above. The Offline Files service does not exist on 2008 R2.

[themightymrp]

It will help with the home directories, however not sure about the redirection errors. You may need to look in some event logs to see whats going on there

[IT_Man_Dan]

Afternoon all, Disabling offline files seems to have cured the missing or incorrect work showing in home area so thanks for that.

 

I've got a quick question regarding the start menu redirection. Our users start menus are set via GPO to redirect to \\sername\redirection$ My question is, Should I disable caching on the redirection$ share on the server?

 

Many thanks