Roaming profiles

[Ernst Guckel]

Hello,

I have an unattended install of XP w/Office 07. User accounts have
roaming profiles. I would like to have the Office install handle the mail
profiles. Right now when I install Office it only creates one profile
(Exchange account) on the machine. If another user logs onto the same
machine it tryes to load that profile. Out of the 18 users in the office
only 2 have exchange accounts. The rest are just pop email (.pst files
stored in a central place) Is there a way to store all profile information
with the roaming profile so the next time I rebuild a machine and install
Office I won't have to reconfigure each user's mail profile?

Thanks,
Ernst.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

That is exactly what a roaming profile does; it writes back the user's
settings to a central server upon logoff and will load them again upon
logon. It doesn't matter which PC they log on to. How do you currently have
the Roaming Profiles configured then?

Note that this has got nothing to do with Outlook's email profiles; users
log on with their own credentials to Windows which load their roaming
profile with contain their Outlook settings as well.

That said; you really shouldn't connect to pst-files located on a network
share. This is not recommended nor supported by Microsoft and could lead to
data loss or even data corruption.

 

[Ernst Guckel]

When I log into a machine that I have never logged into with my domain
account and open outlook it does not load my mail profile correctly. I need
to go into the Mail applet in control panel and create a new mail profile for
my account and then open outlook. This is what I have been doing but
rebuilding user machines is becomming more and more time consuming ...

Ernst.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

It sounds to me that the roaming profile didn't get loaded properly then or
hasn't been set up correctly. With roaming profiles you can log in to any
machine and your settings will get loaded from the server and applied
locally.

Do all the other settings from other applications get loaded correctly?
Does your personal background get loaded for example?

 

[Ernst Guckel]

Yes. The roaming profile seems to be performing properly. I have
discovered an issue with the install adn am reinstalling a new build to test
it. I have confidence.

One other question you might be able to help with. I know that storing pst
files on a network share is frowned upon. What are my alternitives? Is
there a better way?

Ernst.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Frowned upon is putting it mildly ;-) But sadly it is still common practice
with all its consequences.

As you're having an Exchange server available, that is what you could use
instead. Even if you want to continue to use the POP3 accounts, you could
give them data storage on the Exchange server where they can download their
messages to. Note that this will also save space on the network as the
Exchange database has a better level of compression than a pst-file ;-)

 

[Ernst Guckel]

Thanks for the help...

Ernst.

Frowned upon is putting it mildly ;-) But sadly it is still common practice
with all its consequences.

As you're having an Exchange server available, that is what you could use
instead. Even if you want to continue to use the POP3 accounts, you could
give them data storage on the Exchange server where they can download their
messages to. Note that this will also save space on the network as the
Exchange database has a better level of compression than a pst-file ;-)

 

[Roady [MVP]]

You're welcome!

Thanks for the help...

Ernst.