RDS > Office 365 > Outlook 2016 = Profile nightmares

glenimp617 · 4 Nov 2015 at 07:57

Hi all,

Just wondering how you guys are handling your outlook profiles on an RDS session. Currently our RDS servers delete all local profiles each night to save disk space. We have thousands of users logging in, and since everything is folder redirected it works well for us.

That said, outlook does not use appdata roaming so every morning users are having to click next, next, finish before getting their emails. Autodiscover is enabled so they don't have to do anything complicated, but it's still a pain.

Now we have moved to Office 365 PRF files is a huge no no due to MS cloud clustering so we are a bit stuck as to what we should do.

Just for info, we are on RDS 2008 R2 :mad:

which is as everyone knows a bit rubbish but will be moving to Server 2016 asap for it. Then I guess we can start using the new user virtualization stuff, but for today we have what we have

Thanks

glenimp617 · 6 Nov 2015 at 08:22

rotor said:
What is this new user virtualisation stuff you speak of?

Can't remember the name but I'll find out. It's basically a virtual hard disk which follows the user around. No need for redirected folders, local/roaming appdata etc etc

glenimp617 · 6 Nov 2015 at 08:26

This is the screen I want rid off

IIRC, autodiscover happens after this screen and creating an outlook profile using the ORK doesn't support Office365 due to the way MS uses cloud server redundancy

glenimp617 · 6 Nov 2015 at 09:38

Nate--IRL-- said:
Don't delete the profile and use on-line or 1 month cached mode.

Nate

Can't do that as these RDS servers have hundreds of users logging in which over a few days fills the disks

Here's an idea.......link all RDS servers to our SAN and provision a LUN called "RDSProfiles". Mount c:\profiles to the LUN on all servers and GPO the location of profiles to c:\profiles.
That way the local RDS disks won't fill up, all profiles are the same across the RDS farm, logins will by fast and nobody will ever have to keep creating outlook profiles.

glenimp617 · 6 Nov 2015 at 09:49

paradigm said:
User profile disks?

Thats it!

glenimp617 · 7 Nov 2015 at 11:24

warnox said:
Why don't you have roaming profiles for your RDS environment? If most folders are redirected these profiles won't be very big, ~50MB. This isn't really any different to Citrix UPM.

Roaming profiles are an utter nightmare, we will be moving to profile disks next year

glenimp617 · 8 Nov 2015 at 10:48

RichIbizaSport said:
Office Customisation Tool on the Outlook install?

Again, I don't know if it's possible with RDS but OCT can skip that start screen.

IIRC, it only skips that screen when you specify a server name. Office365 is unable to do that as you have to use the autodiscovery record. Using that means you need to click next a couple of times.

glenimp617 · 9 Nov 2015 at 08:17

RichIbizaSport said:
Did you read up on the reg key I posted earlier? ZeroConfigExchange

I can't remember exactly, I think it's a combination of the two, I'm running 365 in my office and there's no config of outlook what so ever now.

I've no idea why, but totally missed your post :eek:

Will look into it this morning as looks ideal. Thanks

glenimp617 · 9 Nov 2015 at 10:25

ok that registry key does the trick, but outlook sits for 5mins at the "loading profile" screen before coming up with the office365 login.

If I can find out why it waits for 5mins, I'll be very happy

Tried specifying a PRF file, but still takes 5mins