Slow Roaming Profile Over WAN

[Brad Shapiro]

Here's the situation:

My users all have roaming profiles because many/most do not have a
computer or desk. They just sit anywhere there's a PC and thus the
roaming profile is a terrific technology for me.

But... We have a remote location with one computer that's connected
via a VPN through a cable modem. Different users log in to that
computer on different days. It takes about **fifteen minutes**
<yikes!> to log them in. I'm assuming the roaming profile and or group
policies are getting in the way.

So the question: Is there anything I can do to speed this up? Can I
copy a user's existing cached profile from another computer to the
remote computer and have the local profile used instead of having to
download everything again?

The connection is fairly fast. The average ping time is about 120ms.
It's about T1 speed.

Thanks!

 

[Steven L Umbach]

There are options you can configure in Group Policy that may help. If the
link is too slow slow link detection will kick in. You can also modify what
you consider is slow link detection and therefore change what policy is
applied. There are also Group Policy settings under computer
configuration/administrative templates/system/logon that you may want to
tweak such as only allow local user profiles. --- Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;227260

 

[chriske911]

Brad Shapiro has brought this to us :

Here's the situation:

My users all have roaming profiles because many/most do not have a
computer or desk. They just sit anywhere there's a PC and thus the
roaming profile is a terrific technology for me.

But... We have a remote location with one computer that's connected
via a VPN through a cable modem. Different users log in to that
computer on different days. It takes about **fifteen minutes**
<yikes!> to log them in. I'm assuming the roaming profile and or group
policies are getting in the way.

So the question: Is there anything I can do to speed this up? Can I
copy a user's existing cached profile from another computer to the
remote computer and have the local profile used instead of having to
download everything again?

The connection is fairly fast. The average ping time is about 120ms.
It's about T1 speed.

Thanks!

remove everything that is not needed in the profile
like history, temp folder and so on
also you could do a redirect for the "my documents" folder
this makes the profile smaller in size and thus faster to load

enable the slow link policy
this way the profile is not synchronized and a local copy of the
default user profile is copied

grtz

 

[Hank Arnold]

Have you verified that it's the roaming profile? What happens if you revert
them back to local profiles?

 

[Brad Shapiro]

If I logon with a non-roaming profile account (domain admin) it's
almost instant.

 

[Hank Arnold]

Have you tried it with one of the accounts that has a problem? I would
definitely want to rule out the possibility of a profile problem. Also, use
a non-admin logon. Too many limitations are not imposed when using admin
accounts....