ForceOST to any folder on C drive?

[Rich]

I have users with roaming profiles, and we are forced to use Cached Mode in
Outlook 2007. Right now their OSTs are in Local Settings, but that means
every day they have to redownload all their email from the server, which
takes forever. Could i use the ForceOST gpo to change it so they dont have
to redownload? any suggestions?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You want to change it to where?
You can change it to another location on the C:\-drive but that will still
leave you with the same issue; whenever they log on to a new machine, the
cache needs to be build on that machine first.
Depending on the amount of machines they switch between, you could just wait
until they have logged on to all the machines (as there is less to update
after the initial cache has been built) or disable Cached Exchange Mode for
those users.

 

[Rich]

Guess that's part of my problem, not sure of what would be best. I thought
having it in Local Settings was good, but the Roaming Profiles are deleted
from the workstations at logoff, so that means every day it downloads new.
So I dont know if it would be best suited to do a c:\exchange\%username% or
something like that? I dont want to leave the local copies of roaming
profiles, because I always want them to grab the latest one since the users
bounce between a few machines. Turning off Cached Mode isn't an option due
to corporate mandate.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

I dont want to leave the local copies of roaming

profiles, because I always want them to grab the latest one since the
users
bounce between a few machines.

That is the fun of Roaming Profiles; it will update the local profile with
the one from the server when that is newer. So there is no concern there.

Personally I recommend using a shutdown script that deletes old profiles
(3-6 months or so) from the computer when a lot of people log on to a single
computer.

 

[Rich]

So doing something like that would probably solve my problem of the OST in
Local Settings/somewhere being deleted every day and people having to
redownload all their messages, right?

Do you happen to have a copy of that script to clean out the old profile
folders that I could look at? Does it delete even like All Users and
Administrator? those dont need to get deleted.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Correct, if you leave the local profile on the computer, nothing needs to be
rebuild when logging on for a second time.

I don't have a copy of that script but I would recommend to use VBScript or
PowerShell. The logic would be something like this;
-iterate all the folders in the Documents and Settings area in a variable
-for each folder check its name against an exclusion list (such as
Administrator, Default User, All Users, etc...)
-if it is not an exclusion folder, then get the date of the ntuser.dat file
-check that against the current time
-if it is older than a certain period, delete the folder.

ScriptCenter is a good place to start;
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/default.mspx

 

[Rich]

Thanks again Roady. I'll see if I can figure out the VBScript, as i've never
done PowerShell before.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You're welcome!
And good luck! Luckily there are support newsgroups for scripting as well
;-)