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

[Marc Cain]

Hi John,

Happy to help.  Here's the Microsoft Knowledgebase reference for User Shell Folders:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931087

Marc



On Jul 21, 2011, at 5:40 PM, John H Terpstra wrote:

> Marc,
> 
> Thank you for posting this information.  It would help significantly if you could also provide Microsoft Knowledgebase references for the registry changes.
> 
> Cheers,
> John T.
> 
> On 07/21/2011 06:22 PM, Marc Cain wrote:
>> Here are the key steps that need to be applied for Windows 7 and
>> WinXp
> folder redirection in Samba 3.x environments. Feel free to email me off
> list if you need any more detail:
>> 
>> -- For Windows 7 be sure to create a proper default user profile on
> the workstation using sysprep. It's crucial to the initial profile creation.
>> 
>> The first time a user logs onto the domain have a logon script
> (vbscript works great for this) do the following:
>> 
>> -- Copy the applicable folder(s) from the users local profile to
> locations on the server that are outside the user's remote profile path;
> for instance to a folder in their home directory.
>> 
>> -- Alter the paths in
> "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell
> Folders" to point to these new locations. The most critical folders, and
> maybe the only ones you really need to redirect, are Application
> Data(AppData) and Desktop, though you can redirect anything that's list
> in User Shell Folders including Downloads.
>> 
>> -- Make sure the workstation's local GroupPolicy is set to not roam
> the folders you've redirected. Windows will continue to copy them up and
> down from the server's profile folder if you don't set this: User
> Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles \Exclude
> directories in roaming profile
>> 
>> - You will want to look at a couple of other settings in the Local
> GroupPolicy and tweak to your preferences
>> Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles
>> User Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles
>> 
>> Here's the path structure we use:
>> 
>> Profile: \\sambaserver\profiles\username\WinXP
>> \\sambaserver\profiles\username\WinXP.V2
>> 
>> Redirected: \\sambaserver\homes\username\redirectedfolders\Desktop
>> \\sambaserver\homes\username\redirectedfolders\Favorites
>> \\sambaserver\homes\username\redirectedfolders\WinXP\AppData
>> \\sambaserver\homes\username\redirectedfolders\WinXP.V2\AppData
>> 
>> The first logon can be long depending on network performance and the
> number of installed apps, up to a couple of minutes due to the copying
> of data from local to remote drives. Subsequent logons should only take
> 5 to 10 seconds (again depending on network performance) since the
> system is only copying a few megabytes worth of data to and from the
> profile folder.
>> 
>> There are a couple of critical timeout issues that may need to be
> addressed if you experience long Welcome screens after the initial logon:
>> 
>> When the following local GPO is left in its default setting Samba
> domain logons are delayed for 30 seconds: "Computer
> Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles\Set maximum
> wait time for the network if the user has a roaming user profile or
> remote home directory." Enable this and set the value to 0 to work
> around this timeout.
>> 
>> A 30 second timeout can occur if you set the local GPO to "Run logon
> scripts synchronously". The fix was to apply an old Vista reg setting.
> Can be Googled as "Vista Run logon scripts synchronously".
>> .
>> 
>> Marc
>> 
>> On Jul 21, 2011, at 8:07 AM, 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'm
>>> thinking redirect some folders to a samba share on the network will speed up
>>> the login and logout times.
>>> 
>>> Our setup has 25 Windows 7 workstations and about 10 laptop users(also on
>>> windows 7) all connecting to one Samba server. The laptops are often not on
>>> the main office network so i was planning to use offline file sync for the
>>> network drive i would be redirecing to, is this a bad idea for some reason?
>>> 
>>> I've had a look around at various documentation and details seem
>>> quite scarce. However all the documentation I've found is targeted at
>>> Windows XP or suggests using domain wide Group Policy Objects (GPO's). My
>>> understanding is that GPO's can only be used if you have a Windows AD server
>>> or Samba 4 however I don't have a Windows server and Samba 4 is abit too
>>> bleeding edge for a production deployment(?).
>>> 
>>> If anyone can point me to some good documentation it would be really useful,
>>> I would love to see an updated "The Official Samba HOWTO and Reference
>>> Guide" or similar. Thought's comments or insights are also more then
>>> welcome.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Tanuki
> 
>