Questions about roaming profiles

First, I was wondering if I could get opinions from those of you who have worked with Win2K server for a while...

Do you recommend using roaming profiles? I have implemented them for my network, but am having so many problems with them, that I don't know if they are worth it. Perhaps it is better to just map a drive to the user to store files on and keep the profile local. The problem is, our users move from machine to machine all day long (students).

Next, I'm finding that if a user logs into a machine using a profile with a shortcut on the desktop to an application that isn't installed on the machine, the application is being deleted from the machine! How is this possible? Is this supposed to happen?

Also, if a user logs into a machine and deletes an icon from their desktop, it is removed for everyone else that logs into that machine. Is this supposed to happen?

Thanks for ANY answers!
Dei

If your users move around that much, I wouldn't recommend roaming profiles, but would stick with mandatory profiles.

When you install an application to the computer, then you will be installing to the local drive, usually the c:\ drive. If you put a shortcut to that application on the desktop that shortcut will point to the application on the local drive.

If you change locations and logon, the desktop shortcut will show and it will point to the local drive. Obviously, unless you have installed the application to this second computer, the shortcut WILL point to an non existent application. The application will still be on the original machine.

With the roaming profile, the first time a user logs in from a PC, the computer copies the profile and all the user's documents to the local computer. The next time the user logs in, the system checks for the existence of a local copy of the user's profile. If a copy exists, only the changes to the profile and documents will be downloaded from the server, rather than the entire profile. This saves time during the login process, because Windows doesn't have to download the entire profile and document set each time the user logs in

Roaming profiles can be a real pain in the hiney, however, especially if you need to do remote work in the event of you needing to provide support, and they have a 32bit 1024x768 wallpaper in 16 million colours sitting on the desktop!!!. Also, the process of copying profiles and documents can consume a lot of server resources, particularly bandwidth, processing power, and hard-disk capacity and performance.

Make sure that you have a very good back up system if you decide to continue, because you WILL get stick if you lose all the users' rather garish wallpaper, or that hideous screensaver.

So my vote goes with mandatory!!

If this is a big network, expect to spend some time setting it up throughout the network

Thank you so much for your answer!

If I were to go back to local profiles, is there a good way for me to map the student's documents from the shared network drive so they don't have to know they are accessing it differently? ie: some of the students barely know how to log on to the computer, much less search explorer for the H: drive...can I set it up so that they think they are still looking at MyDocuments?

To go back to local profiles, do I just delete the line in the user profile on the server, and click the "local profile" button in the profile settings on the client? Then, can I redirect "MyDocuments" somehow to point to the network share?

Sorry for all the questions...
Thanks!
dei

There may be a way to get to point to a network share, but I am unaware of it, so unfortunately, I can't be more help on this one

A little training may well be in order here, dei. If they are that inexperienced on computers, they won't notice much difference anyway other than that they have to save in a different location

I think the second point in our company's training manual is save NOTHING to My Documents if you ever want to see it again, but save it to either to a network shared drive or to a personal drive on the network. (The first point being, make sure you have turned your computer on before you call support!!)

Deik313 how old are these kids? Maybe you can recruit some of the more computer savvy ones to work with you, to create and implement mandatory profiles? This might also foster an environment where kids are more likely to teach one another .