Best Practices For User Profiles

By Author: Mike Jones
Total Articles: 256

The following are the best practices for mcp handling user profiles:
Allow for different hardware configurations.
Use the same type of video hardware when you create or edit a user profile for a single user.
Create a single mandatory user profile for a group of users only if they all use computers with the same type of video hardware.
Do not use Offline Folder caching on roaming user profile shared directories. Otherwise, you could experience synchronization problems when both Offline Folders and the roaming user profile attempt to synchronize the files in a user's profile.
Do not use Encrypted File System (EPS) on files in a roaming user profile. EPS is not compatible with roaming user profiles.
Do not set disk quotas too low for users with roaming user profiles. Otherwise, the roaming user profile synchronization might fail.
When creating a roaming profile shared directory, limit access to only those users who need access. Only give users the minimum amount of permissions needed.
When creating the shared directory, hide it by putting a A+ training course after the share name.
This hides the shared directory from casual browsers and it will not be visible in My Network Places.
Use servers running Windows 2000 or later to host roaming user profile shared directories. Security features in Windows 2000 and the Windows Server 2003 fam?
ily can help to secure a user's data.
Always use the NTFS file system for volumes holding users' data. NTFS supports discretionary access control lists (DACLs) and system access control lists (SACLs),
which control who can perform operations on a file and what events will trigger logging of actions performed on a file.
To plan a user authentication strategy, you must determine whether your organization will use keyboard or smart card logon. For keyboard logon, you must determine the user account naming convention and password requirements.
The user account naming convention you adopt establishes how users are identified in the domain. A consistent user account naming convention helps you and
your a+ exam papers users remember user logon names and locate them in lists.