We have a couple sites that use roaming profiles with no problems. But it does create unnecessary traffic, especially since we didn't take advantage of redirection. Those sites also have no real business case to use them.
In previous positions we used roaming because we had 10 people sharing 4 workstations, or various people who covered the front desk and needed their stuff regardless of where they were sitting. Our agency is planning on doing the redirection at some point. But we need to think about how it's implemented since it will obviously affect network storage and backups. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:08 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Redirect folders to network We have had horrid luck with Roaming Profiles. Everything from software that doesn't work as it should to profile corruption. (Roxio, Adobe, Certain plugins, LOB software) We redirect the My Documents, and in some cases the Desktop depending upon the client environment. Write a script to copy the favorites folder to their My Documents folder on login once a week and that's all I really care about. We have a few clients we copy the Outlook personalization files like categories and .nk2 files. As we move to Exchange 2010 those .nk2 files become unnecessary. Only time I would consider Roaming Profiles is a call center or VERY HIGHLY standardized environment that does not see major changes and has a good lab setup for testing. Greg Sweers CEO <http://www.acts360.com/> ACTS360.com P.O. Box 1193 Brandon, FL 33509 813-657-0849 Office 813-758-6850 Cell 813-341-1270 Fax From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 8:22 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Redirect folders to network No, we don't use redirection. We have a strict policy regarding our document retention. They know home drives are backed up, and then I make a best effort on anything on C:. Important work is managed with our Engagement software, which synchronizes with other workstations or the server. On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Chris Blair <[email protected]> wrote: Using alternative credentials for IT is going to be a must. Do you just warn the other users about the sync happening everywhere they login? From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 3:32 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Redirect folders to network I would ask why you don't have alternate credentials for IT staff. I'm a one man shop, but I have three sets of credentials. Normal user account where I do a lot of work, get my mail. Account which has administrative access to my and other users' workstations, and then my domain admin account. In the two cases where I need elevated priveleges, it's rare that I also need access to documents that are stored under my normal user access. On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:24 PM, Chris Blair <[email protected]> wrote: Since our users do not "roam", we will probably stick with folder redirection. Another question, once the folders are redirected, I want to enable offline access. When offline access is enabled, and let's say a person does sign into another computer, there information would be synced onto that computer. Is there a way to stop this? I don't want an IT person's documents being synced to every computer they sign into. Thanks! From: Sean Martin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 3:15 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Redirect folders to network Roaming Profiles and Redirected Folders, while often used together, provide different capabilities. Roaming profiles allow a user's operating environment (application settings, customizations, etc) to follow them to multiple machines. This is useful if your users truly do "roam" from machine to machine. If Roaming Profiles are implemented, it would be a good idea to go ahead and redirect certain folders. I would definitely redirect the my documents and application data directories so that the contents of those aren't loaded/unloaded each time the user logs in/out. If users like to save things to their desktop, it may be a good idea to redirect those as well. Redirecting folders without using roaming profiles is a good way to ensure important documents are saved to a central location, allowing them to be backed up easily. In this case, you may only be concerned with redirecting the my documents folder. YMMV - Sean On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Chris Blair <[email protected]> wrote: I have not used roaming profiles, but will to see if that is a better fit. We have asked users to store documents on their user drive, but they are users, and they do not listen. From: VIPCS [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 2:34 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Redirect folders to network Any particular reason you are not just creating roaming profiles for users? Or instructing users to store their documents on a home directory on a server? Sincerely, Jeffrey and Mary Jane Harris VIPCS _____ From: Chris Blair [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 3:21 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Redirect folders to network XP workstations, 2003 R2 Native AD. We are testing redirecting the My Documents folder to the network. The main objective is to capture important data on the workstations for backup. I did some checks on workstations and found a good number of people are storing documents, in folders, on their desktop. I know this can be redirected as well. Any pros/cons to redirecting the desktop and making it available offline? Any other solutions I should look at instead of directing folders in general? Thanks! ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
