Potential impact of redirecting My Documents to a server drive 6

[JPJeffery]

Hi

In considering a GPO to redirect users' 'My Documents' from the "C:\Documents and Settings\username" path to a more secure (and backed up) network drive or, more likely, a UNC path the following argument against has been raised:

"If the file server fails for any reason then Windows Explorer on everyone's PC freezes up because My Documents is now referring to a no-longer-available location."

Have any of you experienced this?

If it does happen, does it only happen when the 'My Documents' folder is redirected to a mapped drive (rather than a UNC path)?

JJ
[small][purple]Variables won't. Constants aren't[/purple]
There is no apostrophe in the plural of PC (or PST, or CPU, or HDD, or FDD, or photo, or breakfast...and so on)[/small]

 

[goombawaho]

Hold it, hold it. You can't do what I suggested. Someone said "what if they are on another PC".

Well, that would totally screw up the data on the server if you used Robocopy with the MIRROR option. Since the contents of the My Documents would be different on different PCs, Robocopy would delete a lot of stuff on the server that IS NOT in the 2nd PC's My Documents.

So, you could still do this, but choose to use a COPY operation.

I guess that's why they came up roaming profiles (yes - aimed at your boss). I think you should try to break his idea by having him answer these questions. If he still forces the change, my idea or your script WILL work.

 

[cdogg]

I still don't understand why explorer is freezing when the network share becomes unavailable. In our environment, we have My Documents pointing to H:\My Documents. If I simply disconnect the network cable, the system continues to run fine without "freezing". I cannot duplicate your finding.

-Carl
"Windows has detected you do not have a keyboard. Press 'F9" to continue."

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[JPJeffery]

@cdogg So you disconnected the network cable on the client?

Perhaps, in this scenario the behaviour is different...try it again but with the steps I gave above, i.e. disconnect the 'server', PC01 in my example. What you have done is disconnect the cable from the client (PC02).

Just a thought.

JJ
[small][purple]Variables won't. Constants aren't[/purple]
There is no apostrophe in the plural of PC (or PST, or CPU, or HDD, or FDD, or photo, or breakfast...and so on)[/small]

 

[cdogg]

JJ,
I see what you mean now. I pointed a client's My Documents to one of our test servers, and when I took it offline abruptly there was a pause for 15-20 seconds. I had several programs open including an office doc located on the share along with other apps (IE, Outlook, and Office Communicator). Trying to close the office doc took another 30 seconds or so. As long as I didn't open anything else that checks My Documents at opening (which is very little), the system would stay somewhat responsive. Apparently disconnecting the network cable on the client side wasn't a good test.

Now with that said, I don't recall the last time we had an outage like that. It is a valid concern but perhaps not one that should hold a lot of weight in your decision, unless outages are common in your environment or your support infrastructure (namely, the helpdesk) doesn't handle outage notifications well in a timely manner.

-Carl
"Windows has detected you do not have a keyboard. Press 'F9" to continue."

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[goombawaho]

Yo Dogg - I never doubted the OP. It's something you CAN'T live with.

What is the OP going to do or has it not been decided yet?

 

[JPJeffery]

@cdogg - I also can't recall having any outage like that. Besides, we have a backup server which is replicated by Double-Take: When the main (active) server goes offline the backup (passive) server takes its place by the Double-Take software assuming the DNS identity of the original.

So, in theory, any real outage is unlikely to be noticed anyway.

@goombawaho - No decision yet. I suspect we'll end up with local profiles only. Not sure about any locally stored data yet.

JJ
[small][purple]Variables won't. Constants aren't[/purple]
There is no apostrophe in the plural of PC (or PST, or CPU, or HDD, or FDD, or photo, or breakfast...and so on)[/small]

 

[goombawaho]

Oh don't worry about that "locally stored data" - it wouldn't be important, I'm guessing. Just have your boss sign in blood (his blood, not yours) if it doesn't get backed up.

I'm becoming a CYA person and I hate it, but there is so much incompetence that if you're not incompetent, others will try to convert you.

 

[JPJeffery]

CYA?

To be fair, we might be able to target clients from our new disk-based backup solution...seems like a potential high admin overhead situation though.

JJ
[small][purple]Variables won't. Constants aren't[/purple]
There is no apostrophe in the plural of PC (or PST, or CPU, or HDD, or FDD, or photo, or breakfast...and so on)[/small]

 

[goombawaho]

C.Y.A. = A new technology bridging the gap between incompetence and liability wrapped around obfuscation.

Cover
Your
A (other word for human posterior that begins with A and has three letters)