Roaming Profile exclusion

[MiniComus]

I have an inconsistent problem with my Windows 2000
network. From time to time (more often with some users
than with others) a user will encounter an error regarding
the inability to write or read their roaming profile when
they log-off/on from the network.

I found a tech-note about disabling roaming profiles at
the group policy level, which would seem to work. Since
each user in my network uses the same computer each day,
there would seem to be nothing wrong with forcing local
profiles by disabling roaming profiles on the group policy
level.

I wanted to get confirmation that doing so wouldn't do
anything bad to my users or my network before I proceeded,
however, and since the policy is a group policy, I can't
see a way to test it with one user before implementing it
with all of them.

Can anyone provide a reason I should NOT change group
policy to exclude roaming profiles, or is my way clear to
make this change without negatively impacting my network
or my users?

Thanks!

 

[Tim Springston \(MSFT\)]

If your users are not needing to logon with their profile at other
workstations then there should be no problem disabling the use of roaming
profiles.

In case it helps, one common cause of the symptoms you described would be
that users have multiple open sessions with that profile. In other words,
the user has logged on to computer A with that profile, as well as B and C
at the same time, with that same roaming profile (which they are configured
to use). Once the user hasn't logs off to reconcile the local active copy
of the profile (on the various workstations) it may encounter problems since
some registry keys are not as expected (they are disparate between copies).
This is a more common scenario when using terminal services and roaming
profiles when client connections are not restricted to 1.

Please repost if we can assist further.

 

[Andy]

I don't know how many users you are talking about but I
suggest you move them back to local profiles for two
reasons:

They almost never get corrupted.

If you deny your users access to their roaming profiles
using GPO it will default to a local profile and you will
end up explaining to a lot of pissed off users why they
have lost their favourites, history, autocomplete
passwords don't work etc

Hope this helps.

Andy