SBS 2003 R2 - Roaming Profiles vs Folder Redirection

[Bollard]

Hello,

I was wondering what your thoughts are on this topic.

Ive setup roaming profiles in the past, that seemed to have worked well, yet i say many websites saying folder redirection is preferred.

To be honest, im not even completely sure of the difference between the two...

I also have a specific question, when using folder redirection to redirect "application data", does that redirect %userprofile%/application data or %userprofile%/local settings/application data or both?

Cheers

[Joel]

I use folder redirection for My Documents only. The rest isn't worth it. When you redirect Application Data, that's %appdata% (there is no %appdata%\Application Data), not %appdata%\Local Settings. Local Settings is not included in a roaming profile.

To answer why you would use folder redirection over a roaming profile; if you use roaming profiles to constantly copy your My Documents folder, you're creating unnecessary net work traffic and wait times while the local or roaming copies of the data sync. If you use folder redirection, the machine already knows where to find the folder, and you have the added advantage of always being able to backup the folder with the changes.

[sc302 Veteran]

roaming profiles grab personal settings as well as other folders and can create a lot of network traffic being that it has to download and upload a local copy of the profile which creates a lot of network traffic and why it isn't preferred. Folder redirection just redirects the individual folders and doesn't produce the network load that roaming profiles does as it just changes the pointers for the individual folders.

Taken from here: http://studenthelp.itee.uq.edu.au/faq/profile/

What is a roaming profile?

A roaming profile is a profile stored on a network share (as opposed to on the local machine) which can thus be accessed from any computer. A user who has a roaming profile can log on to any computer for which that profile is valid and access that profile. Roaming user profiles provide the user with a consistent working environment from machine to machine (appearance, settings, preferences, data files, and the like). Once the user logs off and his profile has been uploaded back to the server, the local copy of his roaming profile is deleted.

Hope that helps.

[greatpumpkin02]

I actually redirect users' Desktops as well as the My Docs folder since I find that virtually no one can be properly conditioned to understand that the files they keep on a local desktop are easily/cheaply/quickly backed up across a network. I redirect the Desktop to a folder under each users' same share on a file server and then just backup that server's folder. It can be tricky, depending on your environment - mine is a mix of TS users as well as local users, and some local users can also log into the TS, so I have specific redirection policies filtered by OUs and user groups. Regardless, they all still have access to their Desktop files/folders, even from the TS, but via a shortcut. That cuts down on confusion, seeing broken links/shortcuts for apps that are installed on their local machines, but aren't installed on the TS.