Server Setup Suggestions

[robbied69]

Hi, sorry for the vagueness of this post. But I am trying to give a brief overview of the current state of our network. .

Our company has a Windows Server 2003 with around 15-20 XP clients. Around 6 of these clients are laptops.

What we would like to know is

What is the best way to manage profiles on the network if users move to different computers at work? E.g. Roaming profiles.

We currently have Outlook 2003 installed on all machines, there .pst are stored in their local settings. Would anything happen if the .pst file is moved to their My Documents area.

Currently, if a user logs onto a different machine and wants to use Outlook they need to create an account on that machine which causes a problem if messages are deleted from the server. We do not have Exchange Server, although I am hoping to persuade Senior Management.

What is the best way to look after laptops when they are taken offline? If we use folder redirection wouldn’t copying 10-15GB of data take for ages to copy to and from the server when laptops are once again connected to the server.

Would redirecting ‘My Documents’ to a server share being advantageous, but this brings the problem of when the laptop is taken offline, will users still be able to access this folder.

If anyone could suggest what they would do with the above scenario I would be glad to hear. Thanks in advance and sorry again for the vagueness.

 

[ShackDaddy]

I personally avoid the complexity of roaming profiles and instead use folder redirection.

If you are using My Documents redirection on the server and you've moved the .pst file to each user's My Documents, the users will have access to their My Documents when they are offline if you have Offline Folders enabled on the clients. Only the initial sync will take time. Every other time it will just sync changes.

A user logging onto a new system for the first time will have to set up Outlook, but will point to the .pst in the My Documents folder for their mail file.

I do recommend that users that keep a lot of .mp3 and .mov/.mpeg files on their systems do so in a separate folder so that they aren't in the sync mix and aren't being unnecessarily backed up on the server.

Simpler yet, just move the Outlook .pst to a network drive along with the user's work documents. They may already be using a network user folder. Then make that share an offline folder.

One office I manage has five people with laptops and all of them keep an offline copy of the main 5gb share on the server and sync their changes up when they are in the office. Works great.

ShackDaddy

 

[robbied69]

Hi,

If I move a .pst file over into My Documents once it has already been created and pointed it in the personal folder properties do you know if any problems will occur?

 

[Spirit]

The pst file is the archive mail?

Then all you need to do is close the connection to the PST.
Move it to the new folder.
Then in outlook go to open - outlook file and point it to the new location.

If you're worried test it first.

Iain