Roaming profiles

[Dave]

I am just trying to use roaming profiles on our Win2k
server with AD and have a few problems! The users have a
mix of WinXP and Win2k.
-Users can login to the server but it takes several
minutes (maybe 10) to load and apply user settings. No
data is stored on the user's desktop, only shortcuts.
-The users profile seems to be stored on the server but
often the users profile on the workstation is set
to 'local' status and I can't change it. Any changes to
the user's profile then aren't saved on the server.
Any ideas please?

 

[Herb Martin]

I am just trying to use roaming profiles on our Win2k
server with AD and have a few problems! The users have a
mix of WinXP and Win2k.
-Users can login to the server but it takes several
minutes (maybe 10) to load and apply user settings. No
data is stored on the user's desktop, only shortcuts.

Unless you have MANY (more than 10 perhaps) GPOs
stacked up in AD or they have slow/many login scripts
then many such problems are NAME RESOLUTION
problems (but keep reading.)

-The users profile seems to be stored on the server but
often the users profile on the workstation is set
to 'local' status and I can't change it.

That is used only to override the NORMAL roaming
profile and should NOT be set other than on "exceptional
cases or machine", e.g., an Admin who doesn't want his
profile to follow him to arbitrary machines etc.

Any changes to
the user's profile then aren't saved on the server.
Any ideas please?

It must not be set "local" on a machine for it to work;
that is NOT normally used.

Also, for slow load, look for LARGE file in the profile,
database or stuff like the IE cache (which should be
split out.)

 

[Thiago Zanolo Mainente - Jornal Regional]

I make roaming profiles to all my uses today with no problem , how do you do
it?

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I am just trying to use roaming profiles on our Win2k
server with AD and have a few problems! The users have a
mix of WinXP and Win2k.
-Users can login to the server but it takes several
minutes (maybe 10) to load and apply user settings. No
data is stored on the user's desktop, only shortcuts.

How big is the profile? Did you redirect My Documents to the users' home
directories (or wherever), either manually in each profile, or via group
policy? The latter is usually easier.

Also, make sure nobody's using anything but your internal DNS server's IP
address in their IP configs....no ISP DNS servers.

 

[Hank Arnold]

A bit off topic, but do you have an easy process for converting a user to a
roaming profile? We have two Citrix servers and currently users log on to
the server (with an ICA client) and get the local profile from each server.
We need to get them to a single profile. My process is to:

1) Decide which of the two profiles is the best one
2) copy that profile to the other server
3) copy the profile to the "Roaming Profile" location
4) update their AD profile to point to the new location
5) log them onto both servers to set the profile to "roaming"

I do the last step just to avoid any problems. We are talking very low level
users who call us frantically if the text under an icon changes....