Roaming profiles - Windows 2000 Server

[Owe Armandt]

I have a domain with multiple sites (different locations) - each site has a
DC.
Before we got multiple sites in different locations we just had one site and
one location - one DC.
We have been using roaming profiles for our users and would like to continue
if possible. Now the proble is that when someone that normally works in site
A travelles to site B and logg on he would get his profile loaded from his
"homeDC" over the network - which could be slow (512 kbps).

Is there a way to have profiles loaded from DC in site A when working in
site A and a different profile from DC in site B when working in site B???


Owe

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

I have a domain with multiple sites (different locations) - each site has a
DC.
Before we got multiple sites in different locations we just had one site and
one location - one DC.
We have been using roaming profiles for our users and would like to continue
if possible. Now the proble is that when someone that normally works in site
A travelles to site B and logg on he would get his profile loaded from his
"homeDC" over the network - which could be slow (512 kbps).

Is there a way to have profiles loaded from DC in site A when working in
site A and a different profile from DC in site B when working in site B???

No it is not possible, but ... You can make some steps to make it a
little more annoying to Your users:
- lmit the size of the profile, I know they will complain
- redirect folders to the network locations through GPO (redirected
folders will not be loaded on the local machine but accessing it over
the network can be a little slow - but I supose that working from remote
location is not usually)
- advice (or force) Your users to keep documents and other "heavy" files
on the network home directroy rather the desktop or other profile folder.
- clean temporary files on logoff

 

[C Hall]

Sites are only used for the purposes of AD replication. I don't know of any
way to NOT have a roaming profile go over WAN links if you have users go
from site-to-site (read: physical location to location).

 

[Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]]

C,

Well, Sites are used for controlling Active Directory Replication as well as
assisting user logons. The way that things are supposed to work is that the
user will authenticate against a Domain Controller that is located in the
same Site that it is located, thus avoiding any WAN links. Does not always
happen ( I am sure that you are familiar with the generic vs. site-specific
SRV Records ) but there are ways to work with this and make it work that
way.

Cary

 

[C Hall]

Opps! Thanks for the reminder!

C,

Well, Sites are used for controlling Active Directory Replication as well as
assisting user logons. The way that things are supposed to work is that the
user will authenticate against a Domain Controller that is located in the
same Site that it is located, thus avoiding any WAN links. Does not always
happen ( I am sure that you are familiar with the generic vs. site-specific
SRV Records ) but there are ways to work with this and make it work that
way.

Cary

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

Is there a way to have profiles loaded from DC in site A when working in
site A and a different profile from DC in site B when working in site
B???

Depending on how large the roaming profiles are you could investigate using
DFS with FRS. If the profiles are located on a DFS share that is replicated
to other sites, the user will pick up their profile from the site nearest to
their own. If their profiles are large though, the FRS traffic may place a
large load on the WAN links.

 

[Owe Armandt]

OK, but my real concern is the Outlook profile (Exchanhge client).
Is there a way of having the Exchange profile set. If using a local profile
and the user is setting up his outlook exchange settings, copying that
somehow to each workstation he logs on to by using a logonscript?


Owe

 

[Tomasz Onyszko]

OK, but my real concern is the Outlook profile (Exchanhge client).
Is there a way of having the Exchange profile set. If using a local profile
and the user is setting up his outlook exchange settings, copying that
somehow to each workstation he logs on to by using a logonscript?

Yes it is possible - actually in my network the user logon script is
deployed to configure user's Outlook profile if it is missing or
incorrect. In addition we keep their PST files on the file server share
(our users use MAPI or IMAP so the PST file is only few KB)