A Digital Age Deserves A Digital Leader

Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby mnemonicj » Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:38 am

I tried disabling the NVidia Driver Service on my Windows 7 installation and it doesn't change anything. I was the one that put a topic on this forum about Vista having the NVidia service issue, so that was something I tried awhile ago.

Do you have any Folder Redirection enabled on your Windows 2003 Domain Controller? I have some folder redirection set up on on my server and I was wondering if there is an issue with that.
PRO Level 15
User avatar
Posts: 1066
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:41 am
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby mnemonicj » Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:49 am

UPDATE: See next post for updated findings. The solution mentioned in this post was later found to not solve the problem.

WTF! I just rebooted my Windows 7 install after typing the previous post and my user profile saved to the server!

When I previously installed Windows 7 and had Microsoft install the NVidia display drivers from Windows Update. I had the roaming profile issues, but there was no NVidia Display Driver Service so I couldn't disable it.

Well, I did a fresh install of Windows 7 and installed the NVidia drivers directly from the NVidia website and then disabled the NVidia Display Driver service. Three reboots later the roaming profile was still not updating on the server, so I wrote the post above. Then I rebooted again and *Magic*, the roaming profile updated on the server.

TIP: If you are having the roaming profile issue where it won't save to the server, do these things:
1. Make sure you do not download the NVidia display drivers from Windows Update, get them from NVidia.
2. Disable any and all NVidia services.
3. Reboot at least half a dozen times.
4. Check your event log for any other reasons why the roaming profile will not save to the server.
PRO Level 15
User avatar
Posts: 1066
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:41 am
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby mnemonicj » Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:26 pm

OK, I think I finally found the solution that worked for me. From the previous post, I had disabled the NVidia services and it seemed that everything worked. Well, I thought that a previous step was unrelated so I didn't mention it, but it is related:

Here is the steps I took to find the solution:
1. Started with a fresh install of Windows 7 and a profile on the Windows Server 2003 that was made in Windows Vista.
2. Did not install the NVidia video card drivers from Windows Update, I manually downloaded the drivers from NVidia and installed them.
3. I went into the services (Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services) and disabled any service starting with "NVidia". When this hadn't fixed the problem after 1 reboot I went to the next step.
4. I opened up the local Group Policy (Start -> Run -> type gpedit.msc) and under the setting "Set roaming profile path for all users logging on to this computer" (Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> User Profiles) I enabled the setting and used this network path for my option \\SERVER2\Server Shared Files\Users\Profiles\%USERNAME% (this path is the location of my roaming user profiles on the server with %USERNAME% added at the end so each user will be referred to their user folder).
5. About 3 reboots later the user profile was finally updated to the server, but thought that the previous step of changing the Group Policy wasn't what fixed it, so I disabled it. After I couple reboots, I found that the user profile was not updating any more, so I enabled the Group Policy change again and it fixed the problem again.

I am not sure why the user settings on the server are not setting the roaming profile location, but that seems to be the issue. When the user logs onto a client, the roaming profile settings should change the settings on the client PC, but for some reason I had to manually change the client's local group policy.
PRO Level 15
User avatar
Posts: 1066
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:41 am
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby chrisj979 » Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:51 am

If you go into your registry (regedit.exe) and goto HKLM\software\microsoft\windows NT\CurrentVersion\profilelist and click on the S- folders until you see the one with your user name then look at the "RefCount" dword, if it is not 1 then your profile will not sync when you log off. You can click and change the value to 1, and the profile will sync when you logoff.
PRO New Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jul 08, 2009 12:42 am

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby tcp179 » Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:02 pm

Disabeling the Microsoft certified, automatically installed, factory shipped NVIDIA Display Driver Service seems to solve the issue.


Same problem here... I had to backout and re-install Vista a few months ago when I had tried Win7 RC1. However, I cannot recall seeing anywhere in the GUI on how to do this in Win7. Can you post the exact procedure?

Many thanks!
PRO New Member
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:54 pm

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby scrub » Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:28 pm

Can you simply copy folders and files from "profile" to "profile .v2" in order to see a roaming profile in Win7?

Thanks!
PRO New Member
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:21 pm

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby mnemonicj » Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:08 am

scrub wrote:Can you simply copy folders and files from "profile" to "profile .v2" in order to see a roaming profile in Win7?

Thanks!


No, you can't do this because the Windows files are different and most files are stored in differently named folders. That is one of the reasons that Microsoft put the profiles in the v2 folders.
PRO Level 15
User avatar
Posts: 1066
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:41 am
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby smitha » Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:38 am

Can we prevent some data from getting copied into the roaming profile taking into consideration of huge storage in the server???

Thanks
Smitha
PRO New Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:25 am

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby mnemonicj » Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:55 am

smitha wrote:Can we prevent some data from getting copied into the roaming profile taking into consideration of huge storage in the server???

Thanks
Smitha


Smitha, there is a Group Policy setting that you can set on the server for all of the client machines that lets you determine the folders that you want to exclude from the roaming profile. I have desktop; start menu entered in the group policy so none of my users with roaming profiles get the Desktop or Start Menu folders copied to their roaming profiles on the server.

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles\Exclude directories in roaming profile
PRO Level 15
User avatar
Posts: 1066
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:41 am
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Re: Roaming Profile Issues on Windows 7

Postby smitha » Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:26 am

Thanks for the solution
PRO New Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 9:25 am

PreviousNext

Return to General Windows Support

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests