How To View Users Local App Data In Redirected Profiles
- Home
- Windows
- Active Directory & GPO
I'm a little confused by the things I am reading about redirection of the appdata folders and Roaming profiles. From what I am seeing, Roaming Profiles can be used alongside Folder Redirection. Wouldn't redirecting the appdata folder server the same purpose as roaming profiles?
The help desk software for IT. Free.
Track users' IT needs, easily, and with only the features you need.
11 Replies
No,
Roaming profiles copy the profile to and from the server on every logon/logoff.
Folder redirection points the profile folders to a share.
Justin is 100% correct.....but just to add on the implications...
Usually the user profile includes "Profile Data" (app data etc), documents, desktop, temp & misc documents (downloads, video, pictures etc).
- The "Profile data" is usually small (unless you have lots of IE or Chrome Cache)....this is copied to the local c:\users when the user logs in & off....usually 10MB to 1GB
- Documents, desktop & misc documents can be huge ....as long as the users saves lots of documents or downloads....anywhere from 1GB to "unlimited" or "very large" (2TB or more). So you do not want users to copy the data every time they log on/off. If you look at a redirected folder after the user logs in, it would point to a shared folder location.
- Sometimes admins would choose to drop or delete temp files, not sync or redirected after the user logs off.
adrian_ych wrote:
- Sometimes admins would choose to drop or delete temp files, not sync or redirected after the user logs off.
And how would that be achieved?
Just some of my experience with this,
I would not do appdata redirect as it can caused problems when a user is moving from desktop to desktop logging in, having appdata redirected can cause certain program not to work correctly.
Roaming Profiles can be a issue if the user's profile is large, it can take A LONG time to login each time and log off as it will download and then reupload back the profile to the server.
Ideally you might want to do folder redirect (point desktops/document to a network drive) as then you don't experience such a long login/logout each time.
masterne0 wrote:
Just some of my experience with this,
I would not do appdata redirect as it can caused problems when a user is moving from desktop to desktop logging in, having appdata redirected can cause certain program not to work correctly.
Roaming Profiles can be a issue if the user's profile is large, it can take A LONG time to login each time and log off as it will download and then reupload back the profile to the server.
Ideally you might want to do folder redirect (point desktops/document to a network drive) as then you don't experience such a long login/logout each time.
I have done folder redirection on all EXCEPT appdata. I think it makes sense to do a roaming profile if the larger folders are redirected. Thoughts?
Justin1250 wrote:
No,
Roaming profiles copy the profile to and from the server on every logon/logoff.
Folder redirection points the profile folders to a share.
Right -- that is clear but the question is, if one were to redirect the appdata folder would that not achieve the same purpose as a roaming profile, in that the user would be able to log in from any machine and use the same Outlook profile, for example? What I want is to avoid having to set up Outlook profiles on every machine a user logs into.
LionGate wrote:
Justin1250 wrote:
No,
Roaming profiles copy the profile to and from the server on every logon/logoff.
Folder redirection points the profile folders to a share.
Right -- that is clear but the question is, if one were to redirect the appdata folder would that not achieve the same purpose as a roaming profile, in that the user would be able to log in from any machine and use the same Outlook profile, for example? What I want is to avoid having to set up Outlook profiles on every machine a user logs into.
No. Roaming profiles copy the whole profile back and forth from the server. Including NTUser.dat and the whole profile. Which is also why you need different profile paths for each OS you use.
Redirecting AppData just redirects the Appdata\roaming to a file server. AppData Local and Low still remain on the machine.
I wouldn't redirect the Chrome Cache or your Outlook PST. That is just a bad time waiting to happen.
Why do you have to set up Outlook? Aren't you using Autodiscover?
@Justin1250
You are right. App data is too much. These days I see Google chrome eating minimum 1 GB data while firefox is never above 300 MB. I would leave app data out and using roaming profile with folder redirection. I was searching for some stuff today regarding roaming profile and Office 365 on the shared computer.
Referring to this link :-https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployOffice/troubleshoot-issues-with-shared-computer-activation-fo... the license data is stored here %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Licensing on the shared computer. So every time user logoff and my VDI Desktop is refresh, it triggers reactivation. I might be writing or seeking help in wrong forum. I'm sorry.
Answering my own query, here is the detailed information about O365 and Roaming profiles.
https://communities.vmware.com/thread/580180
LionGate wrote:
adrian_ych wrote:
- Sometimes admins would choose to drop or delete temp files, not sync or redirected after the user logs off.
And how would that be achieved?
You would have stored the user profiles in a file server (or NAS) then create a batch job and run...
....
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /b /a-d /s *.bak') do move "%%~a" e:\temp
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /b /a-d /s *.tmp') do move "%%~a" e:\temp
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /b /a-d /s ~*.*') do move "%%~a" e:\temp
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /b /a-d /s *.txt') do move "%%~a" e:\temp
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir /b /a-d /s *.dmp') do move "%%~a" e:\temp
e:
cd\
rd temp /s /q
md temp
.....
LionGate wrote:
Justin1250 wrote:
No,
Roaming profiles copy the profile to and from the server on every logon/logoff.
Folder redirection points the profile folders to a share.
Right -- that is clear but the question is, if one were to redirect the appdata folder would that not achieve the same purpose as a roaming profile, in that the user would be able to log in from any machine and use the same Outlook profile, for example? What I want is to avoid having to set up Outlook profiles on every machine a user logs into.
I would suggest that you take a look at GPO & the folders that can be redirected then maybe easier to understand.
User profiles include a large set of "system" folders which are required for the profile to run....like desktop etc....so only a few folders can be redirected and only a few can be dropped (or deleted manually).
This topic has been locked by an administrator and is no longer open for commenting.
To continue this discussion, please ask a new question.
How To View Users Local App Data In Redirected Profiles
Source: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2191576-appdata-redirection-and-roaming-profiles
Posted by: murchisonthertnote.blogspot.com
0 Response to "How To View Users Local App Data In Redirected Profiles"
Post a Comment