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Q. How do I configure roaming profiles on NT?
A. When you sit at a computer and change its
attributes, such as the wallpaper, when someone else logs on they still
have the environment that they last had when they logged on, and this is
achieved using a profile for the user which is stored locally in the
%systemroot%/profiles/<username>, e.g. d:\winnt\profiles\savillj.
If the user then sat at a different computer they would not have their
setup, to achieve a profile that follows the user to different NT machines
(a roaming profile) you need to store the users profile on a network
share, that can be downloaded each time the user logs on. When the user
logs off the network profile is updated, and a copy of
the profile is saved locally. To configure roaming profiles perform the
following
- Start User Manager for Domains (Start - Programs - Administrative
Tools - User Manager for Domains)
- Double click on the user
- Click the Profiles button
- In the User Profile Path enter the network share location where the
profile should go, \\<servername>\<share name>\<user name>
, e.g. \\bugsbunny\profiles\savillj.
- Click OK to finish
To make the profile mandatory, i.e. the user cannot change it, rename
the file ntuser.dat to ntuser.man which is located at the base of the
profile location.
As mentioned earlier, profiles are cached locally to machines, however
this can be disabled by performing the following
- Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)
- Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
- Create a value called DeleteRoamingCache of type DWORD (Edit - New -
Dword)
- Set the value to 1
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