Jump to content

Need Expert Advice


kingsc

Recommended Posts

Hi all. Here's what is being proposed:

1. Create a C: partition for the OS

2. Create a D: partition for profile and storage data.

Benefits:

* Better utilization of the HDD.

* Can re-image the OS partition without touching profile and storage partition.

So here's my question:

1. Would it be better for me to start from scratch utilizing the ProfileDir= section of Unattended Installation so that ALL profiles, including the LocalService and NetworkService are created there?

- OR -

2. Manually edit the image in place in the registry and then copy all profiles except the LocalService and NetworkService profiles.

My concern is this:

* It isn't clean if I don't start from scratch, there will be a Docs and Settings folder on the C: and D: partition. This will more then likely be transparent, but may confuse the user if they are familiar with the default location of profile data.

* However, if I do have ALL profiles on the D: partition, including system ones, will that mean that those profiles could possibly become corrupt resulting in me having to reimage the D: partition and lose data anyway?

Until I recieve an answer, I'm going to be doing #2, but was curious about your experience/advice. Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


In this case you are trying to mix unattended installation and imaging. IMHO, you can't reimage the C: and expect a fresh OS while part of it is on D:. I don't know if it would work nor even boot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see a lot of posts about people wanting to put the profile on other volumes, and frankly it doesn't make much sense to me. I am presuming its the fact that once the profile gets to a certain size, the OS slows down. My solution to that is to not use the profile for anything that gives me a choice of where to put files.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In this case you are trying to mix unattended installation and imaging. IMHO, you can't reimage the C: and expect a fresh OS while part of it is on D:. I don't know if it would work nor even boot.

Well for now I decided to leave it not being 'perfectly' clean and just transferring all profiles to D:, so no unnattended is involved. So far it works very well; there is only a couple 'minor' glitches that I have a good idea how to fix.

The benefit of this is:

When a computer writes a disc, it writes from the outside in. The outside is the fastest part. So keeping the c partition, the system partition, on the outside, and let all the junk users put on the disk kept to the inside, hopefully will improve performance.

Also, instead of going through the hassle of backing up user data and what not, keep all their data on the D: partition. Just re-image the system partition and viola, good to go. It now concerns me however when I'm thinking of how a profile interacts with the system partition. Right now, it just occured to me, I may want to revisit creating a default user profile, modifying location of documents via right-clicking the start menu and setting THAT to a folder on the D partition...... that may work better as it should store solely the data they've put in their documents.....

But then... after re-imaging, their customizations would dissapear......

I just don't know... lol :blink:

EDIT - And if I do the default user edit thing that won't work.... then all new users would save their my docs to the same folder... unless you use %username%? But then.... would it automatically create the folder for each user, like in Active Directory? Yes, I'm working on this as we speak LOL.

EDIT #2 - So.... learned that each time I re-image the system partition and log into the domain... it creates an additional profile following the normal scheme (sking, sking.domain, sking.domain001).... this is workable.. but not clean. Maybe because I'm regenerating SIDs due to the image being sysprep'd before hand? Maybe if I didn't regenerate SIDs it wouldn't do that? Or I need to somehow reference windows to refer to D:\Documents and Settings\%username% to check for profile names.

Edited by kingsc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I've always done, in the past with windows xp, now with windows 7, is put the OS and user profiles on C:, and put users' My Docs and subfolders - but not other config files, etc - on the F: partition. You can set the location for your docs, etc, by right-clicking on the my docs, my pics, etc icons. In windows 7 with libraries, you can just add the other partition's appropriate folder and set it as the default save location. This way your user profile gets refreshed when you reinstall, but all of your files are on a different partition and can be easily linked back to later. Don't forget to set up NTFS security permissions though so that other users can't see the data on your partition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I've always done, in the past with windows xp, now with windows 7, is put the OS and user profiles on C:, and put users' My Docs and subfolders - but not other config files, etc - on the F: partition. You can set the location for your docs, etc, by right-clicking on the my docs, my pics, etc icons. In windows 7 with libraries, you can just add the other partition's appropriate folder and set it as the default save location. This way your user profile gets refreshed when you reinstall, but all of your files are on a different partition and can be easily linked back to later. Don't forget to set up NTFS security permissions though so that other users can't see the data on your partition.

Ahhhh this is what I'm thinking but question is... how do you accomplish this? I mean, I know how to change the default location of my docs for a user, but how do you set this up for the default user? What entry in ntuser.dat? I'll have to research that.

Would this create any issues though? THe user would lose their customizations? No... desktop is in my docs....

That idea might work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To answer your question about setting it up for the default user:

If you open the registry editor, click file > load hive. Browse to the default user's profile, and open ntuser.dat. You'll get the default user's registry hive there. Browse to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders". There you will find the settings for where different shell folders should be. IIRC, in the default user profile it has "%username%" as part of the path names; make sure you have that there so that you don't have everyone's documents going to the same place.

When you are done, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE to unload the hive, by clicking file > unload hive with that profile selected. If you don't, then I'm not sure what will happen when it tries to use the default profile, but whatever it is, it wouldn't work.

Good luck! If you need any more help, please ask.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The changes will be saved, however if you try to load a new user account (and thus the default user profile), it will fail because the hive is already open by the registry editor. If you restart the computer, then it'll be ok (although there's a slight risk for some data loss), and you can log on normally. It's not the end of the world, but it should definitely be avoided.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The changes will be saved, however if you try to load a new user account (and thus the default user profile), it will fail because the hive is already open by the registry editor. If you restart the computer, then it'll be ok (although there's a slight risk for some data loss), and you can log on normally. It's not the end of the world, but it should definitely be avoided.

Right, nothing major happens.

I've made some progress. I'll fill you in later..... too tired right now!!! :wacko:

Edited by kingsc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...