Disable Roaming profiles - Pro's and Con's

Question

I inherited a network with roaming profiles. In upgrading literally everything over the last two years I've finally reached the point of moving the remainder of the data on remote servers (Windows server 21012) to local servers running Windows Server 2019. The issue I'm running into is that although the data was successfully moved to a local server the user profiles are still looking to the soon to be decommissioned remote server. I have confirmed that the Desktop and Documents folders are now local and map-able, but I am unable to break the hold of the old server and all user profile (including my own) come up unpopulated (but with their drive mappings and can see all their content and data, just not via their desktop or my documents. I've checked GPO and haven't found any trace of where the profile can be adjusted to draw from the new location. The only thing constructive that I've found is the GPO policy requiring only local profiles which, in my thinking, would effective kill roaming profiles. At what cost?

If I were to force local profiles would it hurt the existing profiles and data? What, if anything, needs to be done to prepare for a clean transition - provided this transition is possible?

Frankly, my network doesn't need roaming profiles and I don't understand why they were implemented as the norm.

Answer 1

Hello @Allan J. Ashinoff ,

Thank you for posting here.

As I understand, You want to redirect the roaming profile from shared path to local path, we can refer to the link in the following case.

ODB Migration Project | Disable Folder Redirection during COVID when most of the workforce is remote, not on network at logon
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/120874/odb-migration-project-disable-folder-redirection-d.html

If anything I misunderstood, Please correct me.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best Regards,
Daisy Zhou

Answer 2

I'm not entirely sure if that approach aligns with what I need. I want to stop using roaming profiles entirely and move to a more standard approach with the large majority of my end-users having their profiles locally and mapping their systems to their network resources.

As it stands now, I've moved many TB of data from the remote locations. I can see the data here, but when an any user account logs in, while their drive mappings populate and the content is there, but their individual profile is missing, making for a blank desktop.

We are literally down simply because our content, while available, is not easily accessible.

How do I disable roaming profiles. What must be done to ensure local profiles have everything my end-users require and have come to expect.

In GPO there is a 'Force Local Profile' option. If this is enabled will it neuter the roaming profiles? If so, at that juncture will the manual readjustment of all content and desktops related to each user have to be done.

Answer 3

Hello @Allan J. Ashinoff ，

Thank you for your update.

I am sorry, maybe I misunderstood your request.

Would you please tell us how you configure the roaming profile?

Usually, we can configure the roaming profile via two methods below:
1.Via GPO: navigate to Computer Configuration, then Policies, then Administrative Templates, then System, and then User Profiles. Right-click Set roaming profile path for all users logging onto this computer.

2.Via user properies.

We can check if we have configured any one of the two method above, if so, remove the setting to see if it helps.

For more information about roaming profile, we can refer to the link below.

Deploying Roaming User Profiles
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/folder-redirection/deploy-roaming-user-profiles

Best Regards,
Daisy Zhou

Answer 4

hello
is it possible to have both ?
Ty