Re: Roaming Profiles Issue - Windows Server 2003

As usual.... Thanks........... :-)

Regards,
Hank Arnold

Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] wrote:
Hank Arnold <rasilon@xxxxxxx> wrote:
We use Roaming profiles strictly on our two Citrix/TS servers. We also
set up all our users with a home drive and configure all the
applications so that they default to that drive for files. I'm still
considering redirecting their My Documents folders to be sure that
their profiles remain small.

I'd redirect both My Documents and Desktop. To subfolders under each user's home directory - e.g., H:\My Documents and H:\Desktop.
I deal with a client base consisting primarily of nurses who are very
computer illiterate and get confused and irritated when *anything*
changes. We once inadvertently changed the label of an icon from
"Misys Homecare Client" to "Misys Homecare". We receives numerous
calls the next day, "Where is my Misys icon?"...

Understood.
Because of this I have to test out *any* changes before we go into
production. I would like to implement redirecting the My Documents
folder to their home drives but be able to fall back if necessary.

Check the options in the folder redirection settings to make sure you know what will happen if you change/revert this.

My question is, when does the folder redirection happen? Immediately
after changing the GPO or the first time they log on?

The first time they log in.

I would like to
change it, log a test client on and document any changes the user will
see. I have to either send out a document describing the changes they
will see or hold a training session to show them. Obviously, I'd like
to be able to stop and say "Never mind...".

Can this be done?

Yes.
TIA.

Regards,
Hank Arnold

Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] wrote:
Aaron <bikefaster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snipped for length>

Thank you for your quick response to my issues regarding the roaming
profiles. I understand that you like Folder Redirection and suggest
that is the way to go. I am however rather hesistant as I don't want
to have all that information on our servers.
Ah...then perhaps you really don't want all that information on any
computer on your *network* at all. This is a common enough company
policy.
We only want company
information pertinent to work to be on the servers. As of now we
have about 70 users on the network. The amount of information that
has been copied over due to the roaming profiles ie. desktop and my
documents is rather large and overwhelming.
I can imagine! I'll also bet users are seeing some really long login
times.
You dismissed excluding folders in
the profile saying, "if you use properly configured folder
redirection, it's moot."
Re My Documents & Desktop, yes.

How do I configure it properly? So that I
don't have all the needless data
...get the needless data off your network entirely.

. Loss data certainly is not pretty,
but what is key is the company critical data. And by enforcing
employees to copy those critical files to their personal home
folder I feel that it has accomplished what we want.
I think you're going to end up with a mess - can pretty much
guarantee that a lot of new data will continue to go into your now
entirely unmanaged/backed up local My Documents folders.

Truthfully, if I had my way I would agree with you in an attempt to
save all the data. However, I am working with an "IT Dept" that is
set on only have the "critical data" (whatever that means)
You'll want to make sure that "critical data" is clearly defined. IT
needs to implement policies devised by *management* - not in a
vacuum, by an admin.

and nothing
more. I know that roaming profiles work well if they are small and
that is the goal of making these changes. You never mentioned what
was wrong with using "Exclude directories in roaming profile"?
Well - I like to use My Documents. Since most Windows apps respect
that path, it's the easiest way to get your users to store data in a
single place by default. And My Documents redirection to the server
ensures that when a user saves or opens files, they're looking at
the server. I usually redirect it to the home directory, but if you
wanted, you could direct it to a shared folder too (but watch out
for unwanted subfolders getting created).
As of now,
there is no way that I'm going to keep people's desktops (not after
the 3.5 GB one I saw today).
Youch! I think there's a training issue here too.

Is there are way to place a quota on just
the desktop?
Not with MS built in stuff - there are third party quota management
tools, tho. Google should be useful there.

If so, then I would be willing to keep it and not
exclude. With regards to My Docs, I really don't care to keep
people's music and videos.
Nor should you - so I think the question is, why are people allowed
to store them at all?

I appreciate all of your help and advice about
getting this to work properly and look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you,
Aaron
As a wise man said, "There are seldom good technological solutions to
behavioral problems." I suggest that before doing anything at all,
you have a discussion with management & HR. Perhaps there needs to
be an announcement made that any personal data must immediately be
removed or deleted, by such-and-such a date. I'd bet that most of
your users have access to computers at home! Right now, it sounds
like there's quite a mix of business & personal data, and any
technological solution to putting it on the server is going to put
*all* of it on the server . Redirecting My Documents (and
Desktop....unless you have a very strict policy that states, "never
store any files on your desktop") will ensure that *data* is stored
on the server, where you want it stored. This is just my $.02, but
what I've described is a very standard and easy-to-support
configuration.



.

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