[Samba] Samba 3.4, Windows 7, Roaming profiles and Folder redirection

[Geert Mak]

On 21.07.2011, at 17:07, Tanuki uk wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm quite new to Samba administration and I've inherited a working samba
> setup with roaming profiles however the login and logout times for users has
> been growing and I'm starting to think it's time do something about it.

I'd be curious what you are going to do.

I personally inherited a similar situation a year ago, where the roaming profiles were supposed to allow the users to work from different locations in a 50 people company spread around two buildings on three floors. As far as I understand the roaming profiles, one has to log out in order to log in. This was the first problem - people used to log into one PC, then into another, and then wonder where their desktop items have gone (last logout overwrites the previous). Could be something has been set wrong, I did not investigate. Also they had these huge long loading and unloading times. Also, they do not have everywhere the same software (some licenses are expensive). So I stopped using roaming profiles and introduced Remote desktop. Now people, who happen to be "somewhere" in the company and need to access their PC, just open Remote desktop, remember the last three digits of their IP address (192.168.1.*) and they are on their PC, all apps open as they have left them, etc.

But of course, this is one scenario, which might not be good in all cases. Our users work 80% of their time on their PC and then it happens they need to work for a couple of hours on another PC, which happens to be free at this moment. Just thought it might help to share it with you.

Geert.