I use a utility called newprof.exe to implement "roaming" Outlook
profiles. (This program is installed with Outlook 2000 to the
C:\Program Files\Common Files\SYSTEM\Mapi\1033\NT folder.)
Disclaimer: These aren't "true" roaming profiles. Instead the profiles
are auto-generated when a user logs in to a machine. This means that
changes users make to their profiles on one machine won't follow them to
another. If, however, you only want the ability for users to access
Outlook and access standard services, e.g., your Exchange server, from
any machine they log into, this may work for you.
For each user I have a {username}.prf file. This is a configuration
file that newprof.exe uses to create an Outlook profile. I generate the
PRF files by passing {username} to a batch file I wrote that ECHOs out
each line of the file and adds {username} where appropriate. I use the
FOR command to run the batch file for each user.
Each PRF file is only 2 KB files so even with 600 users the files
shouldn't take more than 2 MB of server space. On our system these are
saved in each user's home directory, but you could just as easily put
them in one shared folder on the network.
I have the following line in the logon script. (Use \\server\path
instead of %homedrive%%homepath% if you save all the PRF files in one
shared folder.)
\\server\path\newprof.exe -p %homedrive%%homepath%%username%.prf -s -x
-z
This creates the Outlook profile called {username} from the PRF file and
sets it as default. If the profile already exists, newprof will fail to
create the profile, but will still set the correct default profile.
This works on Win2K and I assume it will on NT as well (don't have any
machines with that OS). On our Win9x machines I run KiXtart (from the
W2K Resource Kit) for login script processing. This gives me access to
the username value which normally is not available to Win9x login
scripts. Oh, and at least the version of newprof.exe that I have
doesn't like Outlook XP or my PRF files are not compatible...it simply
crashes.
See also:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q145/9/05.ASP (about
newprof.exe)
http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/journ/OutCreateProfile.htm
http://www.slipstick.com/exs/olroam.htm
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/zenworks/trenches/tr_distrib_outlook
_zw.html (Refers to Novell's ZenWorks, but might be helpful anyways.
Refers to using profgen.exe to edit a generic PRF file. This might be
even easier than having one PRF per user like I do.)
Hope this helps.
Nathanael
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Maynard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: December 7, 2001 20:34
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Outlook Profiles
I am pretty sure this is not an option. Even if there were enough disk
space on the server it would involve reconfiguring all the workstations,
which brings us back to roaming profiles.....
Colin
-----Original Message-----
From: Boswell Tim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 07 December 2001 11:16
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: RE: Outlook Profiles
Not sure how feasible/possible this is (not enought caffeine), but if
your users have server based home drives, could OL be configured to
store it's profile data on there?
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Maynard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 07 December 2001 09:04
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Outlook Profiles
Hi All,
My company want to set up roaming profiles for Outlook only (Using
Exchange 5.5 SP4). I believe that the only options we actually have are
OWA and full NT roaming profiles but both of these solutions are not
really acceptable in this case. Does anyone have any suggestions on how
to achieve a roaming profile for Outlook only? BTW, manually setting
profiles is also unacceptable as there are 600+ users.
Thanks for any suggestions
Colin Maynard
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