Roaming Profiles?

[JohnBoyII]

The PCs and server at my school are being upgraded. Would it be a good idea to give all users (staff and pupils) roaming profiles?

We have computers distributed around the school so it seems like a good idea. Not sure how accounts are set up now but although users can logon any PC we've had no end of problems with users finding that their settings are not being saved day to day. Some have even had to reconnect to networked printers because they've "disaappeared".

Is there a way to set up roaming profiles to avoid these problems?

Are there any alternatives to roaming profiles?

 

[pja123]

How beefy is the server, roaming profiles depending on how many users you have, can take up a lot of space on the server, not to mention the continual copying backwards and forwards of profiles/settings to various machines as users move from one pc to another, will your network bandwidth tolerant this.

Do your users already make use of network drives for storing their documents centrally? You say you're losing mapped printers and drives, can you explain more?

A little bit more information on what your setup is like, number of clients, servers, users - software you're running would help us more.

 

[JohnBoyII]

The total number of users is around 500 and currently everything is saved across the network. Bandwidth has been a problem but over the summer we're getting a new server and more cabling which is supposed to cure it.

Other than MS Office, IE and virus checker most of our s/w is educational.

The current set-up means that we should have roaming profiles but there have been problems. For example, users should automatically be connected to all networked printers, but are not. When they connect to a particular printer and come back next day or work on another PC they have to re-connect to the same printer. A few times this has happened with s/w tool also. For example, a user might set-up MSExcel in a certain way, but next day when they login the setting have gone back to factory. Somedays, s/w tools installed are not accessible, when you double click a Browse window comes asks you to find the tool because the shortcut isn't working.

Our IT is outsourced and a new bunch have just come in. We'd like to give them some ground rules so that we can start with a (better) clean sheet.

 

[timtheenchanter]

how old are the PCs compared to the servers, we had problems last year, with the PCs being lots faster than the servers, if a lot of people logged on/off at the same time (it in a school) the server couldn't keep up, so roaming profiles appeared to be "lost" when if fact they just hadn't been loaded, new servers solved the problems.

IIRC, in a school, roaming profiles are a necessity (in a secondary at least) to prevent students form accessing each others data, and to apply correct restrictions to various groups

 

[JohnBoyII]

The PCs are Dell 755's and quite recent. Although along with the server the ICT room is getting new PCs too.

Is there a checklist somewhere that I can give to the IT guys when they setup the roaming profiles? Just to make sure that everything is setup and nothing missed. It'll be a lot easier to have a good start now, rather than trying to patch things up later.

Also what's a reasonable size disk quota for users?

 

[uzziel49]

Sounds like you need to be telling the IT firm very clearly what you expect to acheive with the new network setup. You've already said you want to connect to all network printers, and user settings for MS Office to be portable across the network too. Any email use? Web browser use, favourites and history, etc? They should all be included too. Be the end-user, and tell the supplier what you as the customer want to receive from them. No need to know all the jargon, just give it in plain English, it's their job to translate that into a technical solution. Just be clear on whta you expect to do with the network once it's been setup so that you can perform acceptance testing before signing off on their work. Also, will you be performing standard admin tasks (e.g new user setup, AD setup (assuming you're using AD that is), new printer setup, etc). If so, make sure they show you how to do these, ideally have it presented to you in document form so that the knowledge is easily shared in case you're not available.

As for disk quota, you 'll need to think about your available capacity, the number of users you have, current usage, etc, plus anticipated growth. Ideally you should leave enough spare unused capacity so that you can expand quota's as and when you need to without installing additional hard drives. But I'm not sure we can give a default "one size fits all" disk quota size recommendation.

 

[EddieM]

Dump all the MS rubbish and use UNIX, job done.

 

[JohnBoyII]

Great thanks for the tips! Didn't think about the acceptance bit, but its a great idea.

 

[uzziel49]

You're welcome

One thing I think you should check is set up correctly is folder redirection. If this is set up, and set up correctly, then AD will understand that the user profile is a roaming profile and is stored in a specific network location. As a result, it will prevent it from copying chunks of the roaming profile back and forth between the server and the client machine each time a user logs on or off. If it's not set up, you would likely end up with extended log on and log off times while profile data was copied from the server to the client at logon, then back again at logoff. If you're having roaming profiles it makes a lot of sense to have folder redirection set up too.

 

[jp10]

One thing you need to do it make sure users/support staff are understanding of data restrictions...on mailboxes/profiles/shared drives etc...

One thing I learnt is that a user base that thinks there is an endless limit to storage and their expectations are set at that level...you are on a total hiding to no-where!