How do Windows2000/XP roaming profiles work

[Bruce]

Hi,

We are in the process of upgrading our network to Win2000 Servers and
XP clients as are probably 1000's of other organisations. Our original
network was based on NT4 Servers and Win95 clients in a single domain.

Anyway, we have upgaded the servers to Win2000 and are in the process
of upgrading the clients to XP. We didn't have roving profiles on our
old network and we would like to enable them on our new network.

We are going to store the profiles in subdirectory in each users home
network drive. My question is, how are the profiles setup? Do we need
to setup a profile that we would like all the users to have and then
copy that profile to all the users home drives?

Or is there any easier way, ie. I am thinking there might be a default
profile share we could setup on the server. If a user logs in and the
profile doesn't exist (in the profile path in the user account eg.
\\server\users\jbloggs\profile) then the server creates a new profile
based on the a default profile on the share and is copied to the the
users profile directory. Then all we would need to do is setup a
perfect profile on a PC (with everything setup have we want) and copy
it to the default profile folder on the server.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

Bruce.

PS. I heard that the user's profile is copied in the client when the
user logs in. I know that ntuser.dat would need to be copied but would
it aslo include the contents \desktop and \my documents etc.? Wouldn't
that be a bit crazy? It could take ages to copy the files. Surely they
are best left on the server. Also, I heard that the profile can be
cached on the client. Wouldn't this be a a bit insecure if the users
\desktop and \my documents folder remains on the PC for the next
person to logon and look at (albeit with NTFS protection). Also,
wouldn't the cumulation of users profiles fill up the harddrive (if
lots of different people use a single PC)?

 

[Ricardo M. Urbano - W2K/NT4 MVP]

Bruce, I know NT4 roaming profiles well, but not W2K roaming profiles.
However, no one else has replied yet, so I'll do my best. Others,
please feel free to add/modify as needed.

On NT4 domains, you could use User Manager for Domains to make multiple
selections of users and then specify the profile location using a
variable, such as:

\\FILESERVER1\Profiles$\%UserName%

When you clicked OK, User Manager for Domains would translate %UserName%
to the actual user name of each user. If you then double clicked the
user name for any user, you would actually see the user's user name in
the profile path instead of '%UserName%'

I'm sure there is some equivalent method in AD, but don't know for sure.

While you can put the users' profile directories in the home drives, I
would be wary of doing that; it would be way to easy for a user to
accidentally or ignorantly delete or move the profile directory.

I would instead setup a profile share and have all the profiles go into
there.

Yes, the profile is copied to the local profile directory at login, and
local changes are replicated back up to the server at logoff. For that
reason, if you are going to use roaming profiles, you will want to
educate and encourage your users *NOT* to save data to the default
location under the profile. They should save their work to their home
drive so it's not copied w/ the profile. It would be in their own
interest to do so because the smaller their profile, the quicker their
login and logoff times. Also, the IE cache is under the profile and can
get quite large as well. There is a way to prevent the IE cache from
being copied by using a policy.

A profile is typically a couple of dozen MB in size, so if 25 users log
into the same machine, the Documents and Settings folder may grow to
about a GB in size or so, so you want to make sure your client
installations have enough room for roaming profiles and all your
applications. I wouldn't use a boot volume less than 10GB for this
situation.

htht & gl

 

[Bruce]

Thanks Ricardo, your post ws most informative.

Bruce, I know NT4 roaming profiles well, but not W2K roaming profiles.
However, no one else has replied yet, so I'll do my best. Others,
please feel free to add/modify as needed.

On NT4 domains, you could use User Manager for Domains to make multiple
selections of users and then specify the profile location using a
variable, such as:

\\FILESERVER1\Profiles$\%UserName%

When you clicked OK, User Manager for Domains would translate %UserName%
to the actual user name of each user. If you then double clicked the
user name for any user, you would actually see the user's user name in
the profile path instead of '%UserName%'

I'm sure there is some equivalent method in AD, but don't know for sure.

While you can put the users' profile directories in the home drives, I
would be wary of doing that; it would be way to easy for a user to
accidentally or ignorantly delete or move the profile directory.

I would instead setup a profile share and have all the profiles go into
there.

Yes, the profile is copied to the local profile directory at login, and
local changes are replicated back up to the server at logoff. For that
reason, if you are going to use roaming profiles, you will want to
educate and encourage your users *NOT* to save data to the default
location under the profile. They should save their work to their home
drive so it's not copied w/ the profile. It would be in their own
interest to do so because the smaller their profile, the quicker their
login and logoff times. Also, the IE cache is under the profile and can
get quite large as well. There is a way to prevent the IE cache from
being copied by using a policy.

A profile is typically a couple of dozen MB in size, so if 25 users log
into the same machine, the Documents and Settings folder may grow to
about a GB in size or so, so you want to make sure your client
installations have enough room for roaming profiles and all your
applications. I wouldn't use a boot volume less than 10GB for this
situation.

htht & gl