Our roaming profiles cause slow logins and 'corrupt profile' errors.
Roaming Profiles are legacy (late-90s design) and fit modern user data like Outlook OST and OneDrive poorly. Folder Redirection to OneDrive is the clean successor.
Try this first
- 1Inventory what is in profiles today: AppData, Documents, Desktop, Outlook OST. Decide which parts to migrate.
- 2Stop using roaming profiles for new accounts: disable the 'Set roaming profile path' GPO, use a mandatory profile or none.
- 3Configure Folder Redirection to OneDrive Known Folder Move (KFM) for Desktop, Documents and Pictures. Data goes to the user's OneDrive folder.
- 4Migrate per user: log in on the new machine, let OneDrive sync, set the old profile share to read-only, verify data.
- 5After a few weeks: clean up old profile shares, disable 'Delete cached copies of roaming profiles' GPO since it is no longer relevant.
When to bring us in
With many terminal servers that genuinely need local AppData, look at FSLogix Profile Containers (free with M365). Much faster and more stable than roaming.
See also
- One DC or two DCs for an SMB office?Two is almost always the right answer; one DC is a single point of failure for logon, DNS and GPOs.
- Should I split FSMO roles across two DCs?For a small domain all on one DC is fine; with two DCs splitting is tidier but not required.
- How do I know my AD replication is healthy?Replication errors creep in silently; they only surface when logins or GPOs misbehave.
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