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Roaming User Profiles

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by jasonbis

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We have a large network with hundreds of users mainly running WXP. Users log on to many different machines throughout the day and want their files and settings to follow them so we set them up with roaming profiles. That worked fine for a while until they started saving large files to their profile. We also implemented a program called Desktop Authority which solved a few other problems we had. The bad thing with Desktop Authority is that is won't allow more than one .pst archive from outlook so users can't see their emails. Roaming profiles get around the .pst problem but with their large profiles, users are waiting anywhere from 2 minutes to 15 minutes to get logged in. We have tried to educate the users to not save things in their profile but there are still those who won't listen. I am looking for any suggestions you may have, any new third-party programs you may be using or any other ideas you have that work well and might be worth a try. Thanks.

14 replies

by jasonbis

Forgot to mention we are playing around some with folder redirection. Is anyone else familiar with that and could that be the answer?

by sgt_shultz

wait a minute. the Sgt knows nuthING but I thought roaming profiles were stored on the server so i don't see how a large profile could be causing this.
you sure this is why? anything in the event logs on an affected pc. you can login with one roaming profile fast and another slow on a any given pc, yes? repeatable, yes?

by sgt_shultz

Some Programs May Be Slow When Accessing Files on a Network Share
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;326826
why not call ms on this one. you might get free support.

by jasonbis

With roaming profiles, the data is stored on a network share but every pc a user logs on, that data is copied from the share to that computer. If they create new files or change their wallpaper, those files and settings get copied up to the share again and then get copied back down to the next computer they log on to. So when their profile gets to be 100-200 MB, it takes them a long time to log on and off. It is with many users and many machines so there isn't really a "problem machine" or anything but thanks for the suggestions.

by gigelul

I saw your comments to previous answer and I want to ask you if you speak serious: 100 to 200MB roaming profiles!!!!!!!!! You have a very good network if you can use these roaming profiles, a login scripts, all other services which starts at PC start or user login and this takes 2 to 15 minutes only.
This is not a roaming profile it is a nightmare!

We use from years roaming profiles and usualy a profile have around 10MB.
- exclude some folders to replicate to server (temporary internet files, etc.)
- redirect some folders (my pictures, etc.) to home directory

In past I used SpaceGuard application to put a quota for shares, user, groups on servers. You can force a xMB profile, inform the users that they will lose the files if they don't save in the right place ... This is a forever fight.

Good luck.

by samthetrue

dont know if this is gonna help but make sure the computers are virus free... and that the users arnt installing programs into the profiles... that might cause the large files... i dont know how helpfull all of this will be...

by jepott

I had a very similar issue on our network (fairly small only 30 users). The issue was not so much that the profile was 300MB... it was because the My Documents folder was being syncronized with each station that a given user was loging into. The My Documents folders were ranging in size from 500MB to over 4GB. You may want to check into the Syncronization - your server may be set to automatically syncronize. Hopefully this will help - if not, I hope you can find the solution to your problem. Thanks, JEPott

by f-baer

1. english is not my own.
you can store My Documents etc.. with a logonscript on a network "homedrive", with gpo you can redirect the "My Documents...etc" to the homedrive. allso you can store the .pst files there using a gpo template for office. than you can limit the mailbox to 200mb in exchange. i think a good program is storage cental (or VERITAS Storage Exec?)from veritas, have a look on the website http://www.veritas.com/

hth f-baer

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