RE: Folder re-direction and "Offline files".

It's automagic - When the My Documents folder is redirected Windows
automatically enables Offline Folders.

FYI - Turn off XP FastBoot (group policy) before switching your users to
roaming profiles. Othewise it can take XP multiple reboots to get the entire
profile up - if a user (say the corporate VP) logs on a different machine
after only one reboot the profile gets screwed up. :-)

"Mrpush" wrote:

I think I'm going to take your advice here, thanks for the help.

My last question is however, In my tests, I have romaing profiles (I do not
delete local cached copies), and a 2nd share for the re-directed folders.
However, I have NOT set up OFFILINE files yet, but I have unlugged a WS from
the LAN, logged on (to verify cached copy of profile) and all the documents
that are in the re-directed folders, are avaiable to me. This is great but
unexpected! If they are re-directed, do they automatically sync as OFFLINE
files?

When I goto the redirection share, and right click the re-directed folders,
the "MAKE AVAILABLE OFFLINE" item is checked and grayed out.

But, as I said, I did not set up any OFFLINE files yet.

Can you say confussed?

Thanks much,

Mark


"mtstream" wrote:

I don't think this is a path you want to go down.

To answer your question - the profile that wasn't deleted was not the user's
domain profile. When the user logged on before the computer joined the
domain it created a local user esentially computername.username. Once the
computer joined the domain and the user authenticated via the domain a NEW
user/profile was created. The two profiles, even though they have the same
user name are two completely different users. Which means - different My
Documents. Yes, you could create a local profile that would "stick" but
there would be no relationship to the domain account (security permissions,
folders, etc. are different).

Recomendation:

1. Create a network share for Roaming Profiles
2. Create a Different share and redirect My Documents to it

Re-directing My Documents to a different share removes it from being part of
the Users Profile. This helps speed up log on (especially over the WAN)
since the files aren't transfered with the Profile (they're synched based on
Offline Folder settings). It also allows you to control Offline Folder
syncronization seperate from the user's Roaming Profile.

For example - you could deny offline folders to desktop machines in your
main office and allow it for notebooks through group policy. This allows
your office workers to roam without having to synch everbody's files that
used the system before. While mobile/WAN users have Offline Folders.

"Mrpush" wrote:

Mtstream,

After an hour of playing around with profiles, I think you may be right.

But in one instance, I had a user that existed on a Workstation (local
profile). I then joined them to the domain and made the profile roaming. It
kept a copy of the profile locally that would be used, even though I had
"delete cached profiles" on in GPO.

Now, I'm trying to duplicate it, and cannot.

Correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm trying to do is create a LOCAL PROFILE
copy for all users on workstations that are there "HOMES", and then delete
the cached profiles for users who ROAM to those WS. But my tests are
deleteing all the profiles, and leaving no local copies. Don't know how I
got the one to leave the local profile alone and not delete it even thought I
have delete chached set?

Could I create a LOCAL USER on each workstation with the same name as the
DOMAIN user, (i.e. *localWSname*/user name) on each workstation, then make
the profile roaming and it would keep the local one there and update it even
though I have set delete cached profiles?

Thanks much,

Mark




"mtstream" wrote:

You may want to think through deleting the cached copies of profiles via GPO.
I think you'd be better off just leaving them.

If you delete the cached anything (profiles or folders) when a user logs off
and the server goes down (or WAN link is lost) before they log back on then
you have nothing (no profile = incorrect pointer to My Docs, etc). This
would be a major issue over WAN links as you described having. Mobile users
would be a major disaster. Even if the WAN link was up - you'd have to push
the entire profile across it rather than just synching.

"Mrpush" wrote:

Hi,

I see your point and have considered the DFS, however this is not a true
"redundancy" IMO. If a WAN link goes down, then they have no servers to
choose from with DFS or not.

A better option would be to cache the files locally on the workstations.

To combat the "footprints" I would delete cached copies of profiles with
GPO. I could then still SYNC the My Docs folder with offline files.

Thanks for the info,

Mark

"mtstream" wrote:

This is the standard way of having the files available whenever someone is
not connected to the sever (laptops, down server, etc). The downside is if
you users really are roaming frequently. The files are cached on every
system they log into, so there's a footprint left behind. Some files such as
.pst cannot be synched.

The files appear to be one big lump when you are looking specifically in
Offline Files. However, your users will probably never do this. When you
are offline just open My Documents or any other folder and the cached files
will be viewable from there.

If your systems aren't mobile (leave the office) a better option for
redundancy would be DFS replication. This would allow you to have a share
replicated on two servers - if one server goes down the workstations will be
directed to the other.

"Mrpush" wrote:

Hello,

MS 2003 server, GPO set up to redirect certain folders on network server.

I need to re-direct folders because I'm using ROAMING PROFILES and I don't
want log-in to be to slow.

I will re-direct my users My Documents folders (where they keep all user
files) to the server, however, I can't escape the feeling I'll have if the
file server would go off line and users would have NO FILES to work on.

So, I'd like to impliment OFFLINE FILES so that they would always have a
copy of there files locally, and could work on them if the server were
off-line.

The local file changes would "SYNC" with the server and update the server
files with all changes made.

Is this accpetable or is there some better way to keep a synced copy of
files on local desktops?

(A problem that I noted was that OFFLINE FILES of folders do not show the
folders themselves, just a big grouping of all the files set to offline.
Weird, but they would be there.)

Thanks much,

Mark
.

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