Difference between User profiles and home folders 1

[JCrou82]

Is there a difference between the user profile and the home folder section in AD users and computers --> user properties? Can I use one without the other?

I'm attempting to set up roaming profiles with folder redirection. I haven't found how to do folder redirection so I'm just going to stick with roaming profiles. In any event when I just set up the user profiles path and not the home folders path, the "My Documents" folder was missing on the server and I couldn't save any files on the desktop. I then Added the home folders path and the "My Documents" folder appeared on the server, but I still couldn't save any files on the desktop. Is there a reason for this? and is theere a way to do it?

Thanks in advance

 

[Antony13]

User profiles are different from home folders. A user profile is where all the local settings individual to a user are kept. If you look on your machine under C:\Documents and Settings, you'll see a directory with the same name as your user name - this is your user profile. Using a roaming profile allows you to give a user the same settings whichever machine they log on to e.g. same desktop, start menu, my documents etc.

A home directory is a space on the server you can allocate to a user for storage of their own personal documents (usually so they can store important documents for centralised backup).

If you're just looking to re-direct the My Documents folder, use a group policy under User Configuration > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection > My Documents. Right click on this folder and choose Properties. You can then set the redirection policy you want.

Cheers, Antony

 

[JCrou82]

Thank you for your post, Antony13. You've cleared up the differences for me. The question now is, do I need to set the user profile path to use the home folder path? or can I just use the home folder path or will the roaming profile function not work?

Also How do I do folder redirection with windoze 98, since win98 doesn't use the group policies set on the server?

 

[Antony13]

Depends on your current setup and also what you want. If you're users already have home folders and you want to store their roaming profile there, then yes, put the roaming profile path as the same as their home folder (recommend you put in an extra directory so it doesn't confuse users e.g. if their home folder was \\server\share, put the roaming profile as \\server\share\profile or even \\server\share\%username% - Windows will substitute %username% for the username of the user).

If users currently don't have either, then you can just set up the roaming profile path - they don't have to have a home folder as well as you want them too. If you just set the home folder path, they will not have a roaming profile.

Finally, nope, sorry, there's no way to enforce group policies on operating systems before W2K so afraid that's not an option.

Cheers, Antony

 

[JCrou82]

thank you for your post it was quite helpful. to add to your post, I answered parts of my own question and posted it on thread96-463424 .

It seems as if I CAN use roaming profiles without the user profile path, only if i'm using windows 98 though as per antony's post.

Thanks all for your help