Managing Roaming Profiles

Sally needs 24/7 access to her list of contacts. Jim has spent hours customizing his version of Word to perform exactly the way he needs it to. Carol is quick to call the IT department if her personalized desktop background image is missing. In any office, users prefer applying their own unique preferences and settings. To handle these requests, many network administrators employ roaming profiles to manage these user customizations.

Managing User Settings with Roaming Profiles

What are Roaming Profiles?

A roaming profile is basically a file on a shared network location where a user's customized settings are stored. When a user logs on to the network, the desktop accesses their roaming profile and loads their particular settings. Because the roaming profile is stored on the network, the end user can enjoy their customized settings on any machine that has network access, regardless of its location.

When the user logs off of the network, their roaming profile is updated with the latest settings and copied back to the appropriate location on the network. This ensures that the user always has access to his/her latest settings.

The Downside of Roaming Profiles

Unfortunately, controlling what information a roaming profile collects without a third-party application is impossible. IT administrators can employ group policies designating folders that should be omitted from the profile, but the profile can still grow increasingly large and bulky despite their action. Additionally, there is a real chance of a problem with profile corruption during the logoff process, which can lead to a loss of all custom settings and lost user productivity.

triCerat’s Simplify Profiles Wrangles Roaming Profiles

With Simplify Profiles from triCerat, administrators gain complete control of roaming profiles. By allowing admins to select exactly what profile sections are saved, user profiles stay smaller and corruption issues are minimized, significantly saving IT time and business execs money. triCerat's Simplify Profiles makes managing user profiles easy and efficient.

Having difficulty managing user profiles? If so, check out triCerat's Simplify Profiles, a leading profile management tool. Visit our contact form to request more information about Simplify Profiles and other workspace management tools from a triCerat representative.