In a Windows network environment, there are many pros and cons involving the use of roaming profiles versus local profiles. In addition to the security matters, there are issues with data loss, file storage, bandwidth, and more. In this article, I will discuss some of the things I have run across in my work in the IT field.
A user profile is a collection of data specific to one user. This includes data like your Favorites in Internet Explorer, your Outlook settings, and so on. Windows is designed to store each user’s data in one location, such as the computer’s hard drive or on a server.
When you log into a computer, it loads your user profile data along with whatever software you have set to load at startup.
In case you didn’t know, a roaming profile is a user profile that is stored on a server, and it is downloaded to the PC whenever a user logs in. This way, the user can access their information and settings no matter what computer they log into. A local profile is one that is stored just on one computer, and very little data is transmitted between the PC and the server when the users logs on.
Pros:
Automatically backs up user data to the server whenever they log out, so that the user doesn’t have to remember to do so.
Allows users to log into multiple computers. This works great in an environment where people don’t have designated desks, such as an open lab.
Cons:
Security issues. After the user has logged on, a copy of their profile is left on the hard drive. If the computer were to be stolen, this data could easily be compromised.
Slow login times. If a user puts too much data in their profile, it could take a very long time to transfer all that data whenever they log on or off. This could lead to profile corruption.
Bandwidth consumption. Large user profiles take a lot of network bandwidth to transfer data back and forth. Much of this is amounts to wasted bandwidth since many of the files and data transferred are not accessed every time the
user logs on.
Maintenance issues. I regularly have to clean old profiles off some computers because those profiles left behind fill the hard drive so much that they prevent other people from logging in. It’s also a fairly regularly problem to have to rebuild user profiles after data has been corrupted during transfer.