Introduction:

This blog post contains a high-level overview of different types of profiles, considerations for choosing a profile solution for your deployment, highlights of new profile features in Windows Server 2008 R2, and a best practices recommendation for deploying roaming user profiles with folder redirection in a Remote Desktop Services environment.

Terminology

Below are some basic definitions for background understanding of different types of profiles and folder redirection.

Local user profiles

A local user profile is created the first time a user logs on to a computer. The profile is stored on the computer’s local hard disk. Changes made to the local user profile are specific to the user and to the computer on which the changes are made.

Roaming user profiles

A roaming user profile is a copy of the local profile that is copied to, and stored on, a server share. This profile is downloaded to each computer a user logs onto on a network. Changes made to a roaming user profile are synchronized with the server copy of the profile when the user logs off. The advantage of roaming user profiles is that users do not need to create a profile on each computer they use on a network.

Mandatory user profiles

A mandatory user profile is a type of profile that administrators can use to specify settings for users. Only system administrators can make changes to mandatory user profiles. Changes made by users to desktop settings are lost when the user logs off. Mandatory profiles can be created from roaming or local profiles.

Temporary User Profiles

A temporary user profile is issued each time an error condition prevents the user’s profile from loading. Temporary profiles are deleted at the end of each session, and changes made by the user to desktop settings and files are lost when the user logs off. Temporary profiles are only available on computers running Windows 2000 and later.

Folder Redirection

Folder redirection is a client-side technology that provides the ability to change the target location of predetermined folders found within the user profile. This redirection is transparent to the user and gives the user a consistent way of saving their data, regardless of its storage location. Folder redirection provides a way for administrators to divide user data from profile data. This division of user data decreases user logon times because Windows downloads less data. Windows redirects the local folder to a central location, giving the user immediate access to their data when they save it, regardless of the computer they are using. This immediate access removes the need to update the user profile.

There are two primary benefits to Folder Redirection as it applies to profile data:

1. When used with roaming profiles, it can significantly reduce the size of the portable profile data carried around by users for logon/logoff. Since these folders are redirected to network shares, you trade local I/O impact for network/remote I/O impact. This can be very helpful on disk-constrained deployments.
2. Using Folder Redirection with mandatory profiles allows users to have some control/persistence of customization such as application configuration settings (AppData) or IE Favorites.

Useful Links

• Managing Roaming User Data Deployment Guide

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=73760

• User Profiles on Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2009/06/02/user-profiles-on-windows-server-2008-r2-remote-desktop-services.aspx