TS Roaming Profiles, root drives and home drives

[Guest]

Hello.

I am implementing several new WTS servers. As such we want to use roaming
profiles. Under NT4 we had no problems with doing this, and just configured
the "TS Profile" and "TS Home dir" on the user.

We have loaded 2 new servers with Windows 2003 Server Enterprise however
roaming profiles, root drives and home directories appear to be failing.
Only local profiles are being created.

I have configured the rootdrive for legacy applications to use H: and also
set the TS Home Dir to H:. This worked well under NT4 as the rootdrive with
their application data files was away from their profile.

Under 2003 I am getting some weird behaviour.

I performed the following tasks on both WTS servers:
- configured rootdrive of H: and tested successfully for test user account
"cavint"
%homedrive% = H:
%homeshare% = \\fs1\home\cavint
- installed legacy application A, applied install application compatability
script, and created the standard logon application script.
- tested the scripts OK but noted the rootdrive is not mapping to the
server. Further I noted the roaming profiles are not running.
%homedrive% = C:
%homeshare% = \documents and settings\cavint
- modified the application scripts on WTS2 to provide logged output of
these variable throughout the USRLOGON processing. Found that from the
outset, these variables are set. Thus it appears the configuration is not a
result of the WTS scripts rather resultant from the variables Windows is
passing to them.
- researched the roaming profile, rootdirve and home drive issues with
Microsoft's knowledgebase without success
- noted in the logs that the system is advising to disable offline caching
on the share used to store user profiles. Disabled offline caching on the
\\fs1\home share without effect
- created a new user without any affect
- tested user home drive rights

At this point I performed some extensive testing with the user configuration
of TS Profile Path, TS Home Dir, NT Profile Path, NT Home Dir. Note that we
do NOT use roaming profiles for the desktops but I tested this on a suspicion
and it turned out to be right. When reading this recall our Rootdrive is H:
and under NT4 it redirects to the server when we match the H: in the TS Home
dir path

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- TS Home: H: to \\fs1\home\cavint
- NT Profile: -
- NT Home: -
Result: H: mapped to c:\documents and settings\cavint as a local
drive
no roaming profile

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- TS Home: W: to \\fs1\home\cavint
- NT Profile: -
- NT Home: -
Result: H: mapped to c:\documents and settings\cavint as a local
drive
no W: drive
no roaming profile

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- TS Home: -
- NT Profile: -
- NT Home: H: to \\fs1\home\cavint
Result: H: mapped to \\fs1\home\cavint and showing as network drive
no roaming profile

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- TS Home: -
- NT Profile: -
- NT Home: U: to \\fs1\home\cavint
Result: H: showing as "disconnected network drive" but accessing is
connected to \\fs1\home\cavint
U: mapped to \\fs1\home\cavint and showing as network drive
no roaming profile

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- TS Home: H: to \\fs1\home\cavint
- NT Profile: -
- NT Home: H: to \\fs1\home\cavint
Result: H: mapped to \\fs1\home\cavint and showing as network drive
no roaming profile

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- TS Home: -
- NT Profile: -
- NT Home: -
Result: H: mapped to c:\documents and settings\cavint as a local
drive
no roaming profile

- configured the user with:
- TS Profile: -
- TS Home: -
- NT Profile: \\fs1\home\cavint\profile
- NT Home: \\fs1\home\cavint
Result: H: mapped to c:\documents and settings\cavint as a local
drive
roaming profile OK


Hence from the testing it shows the TS is using the NT profile and homedrive
fields rather than the TS fields. We cannot implement these settings as the
XP workstations profiles will conflict with the TS profiles causing chaos.

Configured an OU for the Terminal Servers and moved the objects into it.
Created a new GPO for the OU and configured the policy. The TS policy for
the Computers allows for TS Profile and TS Home directory information to be
set. I have configured these to:
\\fs1\tsprofiles
\\fs1\home

I have removed all settings from the user NT and TS profile tabs. Forced a
GPUPDATE and tested. No homedrive and no roaming profiles. Set the user TS
profile and TS homedrive to those setings in the GPO and tested
unsuccessfully.

Can anyone help !!!!!

 

[Guest]

Make sure users have full control of their TS Roaming Profile folder.
Make them owners of this folder or disable this check via GPO.
Check the event log for errors copying the roaming profile at logoff.
Unless there is a difference between the home folder you want them to use
when logged onto TS and when they logon to a workstation, there is no need to
specify a TS Home Folder.
Redirect My Documents to the users network based Home Folder.

Always check the event log for errors when strange things happen.
Start with simple changes, i.e. implement one thing at a time so you can see
if one item is causing the others to fail.


Patrick Rouse
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
http://www.workthin.com