Question on Roaming Profiles

O

Oneos

Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
596
Hey,

We're working with a Windows 2000 Server environment, computers are running Windows XP Professional, there are ~30 of them.

Okay, I haven't had a chance to look into this yet, but figure I'll take a shot here ahead of time anyway. We want roaming profiles in the sense that each user has their own login, and has to go through AD. What we don't want however, is to have to wait for the computer to create the account (and personalize settings and such) every time they login to a different computer. Is this an obvious setting or procedure to avoid this that I should notice on my own?

Thanks,
Owen
 
Well the only way I believe to avoid that is for the user to have a local profile on that computer they are logging on. Even with Roaming Profiles, there profile is downloaded and the settings are personalized according to that profile.
 
Thanks, I'll read through the technet articles for Windows 2000. I'm sure I'll find something.
 
Out of curiosty, why do want to avoid this anyway? Are your computers slow or something where this take a while or something?
 
Preference more than anything.

I know it is possible, as I've seen it done, but I believe that was accomplished with Server 2003's user template system. Since the user is already configured, Windows doesn't have the need to configure the defaults for a profile if it's never seen the account before.

EDIT: I believe I found what I need in the technet articles, I'll let you know when I play with it today.
 
Alright, I got a chance to get the initial setup done today.

The majority of the accounts (all but perhaps 1 or 2) are going to work off of 1 Mandatory profile (unless anyone sees a reason not to). There isn't a need to have any personalization going on here. This is a school environment, in our computer engineering lab - I'm doing it as a side project for experience in a larger setup than what I do at home.

The way I have it setup right now, the profile takes ~8 seconds to load, which I am more than happy with. As a mandatory profile, this shouldn't grow either. I do have an issue or two with it though.

When I initially logged in to the account to create and configure the profile, it used the Windows Classic appearance - while this isn't necessarily a problem, I'm still wondering where this setting is stored (perhaps I'm excluding it from the profile in the GPO) as I had switched it to XP during the config and classic still loads.

Similarly, the start menu (left side) does not hold my settings (once again, I assume being excluded by the GPO I've set - is this in Local Settings?), I had setup the common programs in there (as well as the desktop), now it is just empty.

Last question, when it comes to permissions on the profile, the "Administrators" group should be owner, and the "Student" group (which all users of the profile will be a part of) should be set to Full Control, yes?

Thanks, if you need any more info let me know,
Owen
 
Edit: Nevermind, I just re-read your post. My answer has nothing to do with what you asked. Sorry.
 
Just to update, got the issues above figured out in some VMs. Will be working it out in the setup on Monday.
 
I just threw together this diagram. It isn't 100% accurate, but its approximately right.

I'm going to be proposing the addition of "Server 3". I'm not sure if it'll go through because that would require being connected to the rest of the school network. To get around this fact, I'm also proposing adding the firewall to isolate the room. Wouldn't necessarily be a *nix box, there is cisco equipment available (the switches are cisco 24-port, don't have the model right now), but EFW is what I know.

"Server 2" is doing DNS for Web1-4. It is separate to try and emulate the "real-world" (in the www).

"Server 4" is there already, specifically for ghosting, rarely on.

Anyway, thought I'd share. Any other suggestions?
 
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