roaming vs. local profiles

[gregg roberts]

I support a system with 50 users and two servers in three
offices. When the system was set up we configured all
the user profiles as roaming so the users could log in at
the different offices. Now we have exchange server 2000
and some people have suggested we don't have the need as
much for roaming profiles which can be much more of a
headache to administer. Which is better for our
particular set-up and which is more highly recommended,
roaming or local?


thanks,

gregg

 

[Eric Voskuil]

If you want to get away from roaming profiles, but still want to have
certain features follow users, you can do so using Group Policy.

"Folder Redirection" policy allows you to redirect key user-specific folders
to a network share (such as their home directory) so that their "local" data
is available to them wherever they go.

Since you are Using Exchange/Outlook, you will also need to make sure an
Outlook profile with the Exchange service properly configured for the
particular user is configured wherever they log on. Policy Maker's "Mail
Profile" policy makes this possible with little effort - mailbox
configuration information is automatically pulled form the directory and
used to configure profiles. Many other profile customizations are available
to you.

There is certainly more you can do, but these two will get you started and
may be all that you need. Performance is excellent and administration is a
snap compared to the headaches of roaming user profiles.

Regards,

Eric Voskuil
Policy Maker
http://www.autoprof.com/policy