Roaming Profiles - Best Practice setup

feenster99 · 14 May 2007 at 19:21

Hi all,
What is the best practice way to setup Roaming Profiles on a domain? I'm running a 2003 SBS R2 server, with around 8 client PC's (all XP SP2). When i've created the user accounts, I setup the Profile path as "\\servername\Users$\%username%", and set "Connect H:" to the same path. I've then started digging round Group Policy and noticed about Folder Redirection.

This means there must be quite a few ways to skin this cat, so can anyone experienced tell me the "standard" way to set Roaming Profiles up? I like the idea of Folder Redirection as it would lead to quick logins (no data to transfer back and forth). Any thoughts?

Matt

Dureth · 14 May 2007 at 19:25

I believe that you want to set the login to have the default user system folders pointing at a mapped drive on the server.

csmager · 15 May 2007 at 09:29

I always like to redirect any of the 'big' folders - particularly My Documents/Pictures/Videos and Desktop (if the user might store files on it).

Only thing not to redirect is Application Data - can get some odd goings on if you do that.

JonnyT · 15 May 2007 at 09:55

As you're using SBS there's a built-in Folder Redirection setup ready to go in the Server Management console that loads at login. Simply drill-down to the 'Users' section and one of the links in the main 'Manage Users' pane is 'Configure My Documents Redirection' which is the recommended way to do it on SBS.

I think the 'Best Practice' with Folder Redirection and Roaming Profiles is to use them in tandem. As csmager says it is a good idea to redirect users' My Documents folders to the server so that they are stored centrally in a single place, rather than being copied to the User's My Documents folder on the C: drive of every PC they log into - which would be slow in terms of network traffic and heavy on disk space on local clients. Roaming Profiles make sense though for the other folders that you can't redirect - such as the Favorites (sic) folder and I'd lean towards letting the Desktop folder roam rather than be redirected and try to educate your users that the desktop is only for temporary file storage unlike the My Documents folder.

Hope that helps mate. There are some white papers on the Microsoft website relating to Server 2003 and Roaming Profiles but these are also perfectly relevant to SBS.

feenster99 · 15 May 2007 at 19:47

Yeah, thanks for that - that clarifies things. Do I have any need to use the "Connect H: to user's home drive" setting then (Under the "Profiles" tab in User Management -> Properties) ? I'm guessing that it isn't needed for what I'm doing.

Matt

mr.bond · 15 May 2007 at 21:23

No, just redirect their my docs via a GPO. This way it's one less admin task for you to perform when creating a new user, and one less drive to confuse them with.

Opps, just realised your using Small Business, I assume what I typed still stands

feenster99 · 15 May 2007 at 21:26

Mr.bond - good scheme, i'll get it sorted

Matt

csmager · 16 May 2007 at 08:43

feenster99 said:
Yeah, thanks for that - that clarifies things. Do I have any need to use the "Connect H: to user's home drive" setting then (Under the "Profiles" tab in User Management -> Properties) ? I'm guessing that it isn't needed for what I'm doing.

Not needed, but might be useful for some legacy programs that don't 'get' the windows 'My Documents' layout.

They'd have to be quite old though.