M
Mike Sandells
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This was from a separate thread, but I think it deserves its own topic, not least because others may have an interest in this and may not have seen the other thread.
In that thread, Jeff Patterson - MSFT wrote:
"Regarding Roaming User Profiles (RUP) support, RUP is supported on Windows 10 but we’re no longer investing in new features. We do plan to deprecate RUP in the future but the timing has not been determined.
Our recommendation is to use our modern solutions for roaming user data:
Our concern is primarily over the first of these - settings and application data.
Roaming profiles work for us currently in addressing two main issues:
We currently depend heavily on both of these abilities, and are concerned that UE-V and ESR - the proposed modern solutions - do not address them. That is, they are not in fact solutions to the problems we currently solve with roaming profiles:
(Correct me if I'm wrong about either of those.)
So, roaming profiles provide functionality that the proposed replacements do not. Removing roaming profile support without providing a replacement that can handle these cases is a major downgrade in the capabilities of windows in an environment like ours.
Obviously, there are some third-party solutions which may offer those kind of abilities, but they tend to be expensive, and tend to break whenever a new windows version appears. We'd prefer a native Microsoft solution, as roaming profiles are currently.
Any suggestions welcome, official or otherwise, for how to handle these requirements in the absence of roaming profiles...
I'll post below about why our students rarely use the same PC twice but, to pre-empt some responses, the following ideas aren't great: having the device move with the user (i.e. give the user a laptop), or having the user connect to a desktop hosted elsewhere (i.e. VDI of some kind). We've considered both of those at various times, and they have significant downsides or are plain unworkable for several cases. Neither of them solve the problems we currently solve with roaming profiles.
Also, some questions on the scope of this. If roaming profiles become deprecated, where does this leave terminal services profiles which are functionally very similar (and which we also use)? What about folder redirection (which we use as a way of speeding up login with roaming profiles by reducing the amount of data to be copied at logon and logoff). What, for that matter, about the distinction between appdata\roaming and appdata\local, if nothing ever roams?
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In that thread, Jeff Patterson - MSFT wrote:
"Regarding Roaming User Profiles (RUP) support, RUP is supported on Windows 10 but we’re no longer investing in new features. We do plan to deprecate RUP in the future but the timing has not been determined.
Our recommendation is to use our modern solutions for roaming user data:
- For settings and application data, use UE-V or Enterprise State Roaming (ESR)
- For user data, use Work Folders or OneDrive for Business"
Our concern is primarily over the first of these - settings and application data.
Roaming profiles work for us currently in addressing two main issues:
- Slow login. Our students rarely use the same machine twice. Copying a profile down from the network is much faster in practice than going through profile creation. By using roaming profiles, our students go through the slow profile creation process just once at the start of each year rather than on every login.
- Synchronising application settings for all applications by default. We have what we think of as a large application set (300+ traditional apps), and this changes frequently. We need settings to move with the user, without having to tailor things on a per application basis. This needs to work for applications we don't necessarily know about (academic environments are like that), and it needs to work for Java and Python (etc) applications that are not uniquely identifiable from their executable name. Roaming profiles handle this for the large majority of cases.
We currently depend heavily on both of these abilities, and are concerned that UE-V and ESR - the proposed modern solutions - do not address them. That is, they are not in fact solutions to the problems we currently solve with roaming profiles:
- UE-V doesn't affect profile creation on first login, requires per-application tailoring, only works for applications you configure it for, and identifies applications by their executable.
- ESR doesn't affect profile creation on first login, and only works for universal apps (and perhaps only then if the application is written to support it).
(Correct me if I'm wrong about either of those.)
So, roaming profiles provide functionality that the proposed replacements do not. Removing roaming profile support without providing a replacement that can handle these cases is a major downgrade in the capabilities of windows in an environment like ours.
Obviously, there are some third-party solutions which may offer those kind of abilities, but they tend to be expensive, and tend to break whenever a new windows version appears. We'd prefer a native Microsoft solution, as roaming profiles are currently.
Any suggestions welcome, official or otherwise, for how to handle these requirements in the absence of roaming profiles...
I'll post below about why our students rarely use the same PC twice but, to pre-empt some responses, the following ideas aren't great: having the device move with the user (i.e. give the user a laptop), or having the user connect to a desktop hosted elsewhere (i.e. VDI of some kind). We've considered both of those at various times, and they have significant downsides or are plain unworkable for several cases. Neither of them solve the problems we currently solve with roaming profiles.
Also, some questions on the scope of this. If roaming profiles become deprecated, where does this leave terminal services profiles which are functionally very similar (and which we also use)? What about folder redirection (which we use as a way of speeding up login with roaming profiles by reducing the amount of data to be copied at logon and logoff). What, for that matter, about the distinction between appdata\roaming and appdata\local, if nothing ever roams?
More...