profile Application (profileApp)

User profiles are located on the local machine to avoid continues loading of the mandatory or roaming profile from our network (saving bandwidth) and speed up the logon process. User group policies from AD are eliminated preventing slow and intermittent results from any group policy changes.

Changes or restrictions that would have been stored in group policy are now stored within the ntuser.man registry hive instead and are immediately applied to the user through the profile.

profileApp has been developed to keep the local profiles up to date by comparing version.txt on the local machine against the version.txt stored on the update location path (see below overview of paths).

As we are using mandatory profiles (ntuser.man instead of ntuser.dat) any changes made during the logged on session (using the profile) will not be saved back.

Core features of profile Application:

Speed up the logon process:
The logon process is significantly sped up through using the following :

  • Using local storage:
    By storing the mandatory profile on the local machine hard drive instead of accros the network the logon process is significantly sped up
  • Eliminating active directory group policy:
    By active directory group policy elements within the ntuser.man registry hive instead of loading from the network the logon process significantly speeds up

Save spiralling energy cost:

  • If the log on screen has been idle for 15 minutes profile application will automatically turn the machine into a energy saving hibernation mode. If there is mouse movement the countdown will automatically reset back to 15 minutes, giving plenty of time to log on. (This will only happen on the windows logon screen)

Generic User Profile (applies to all users):
Windows XP Profile Name : profile2010220611
Windows 7 Profile Name: profile2010220611.v2

Active Directory Profile Path:
User Profile Path: %systemdrive%\profile\profile2010220611
(Windows 7 automatically reverts to .v2 variant)

Local Profile Paths:
Local Profile Root : c:\profile
Windows XP profile: c:\profile\profile2010220611
Windows 7: c:\profile\profile2010220611.v2

Update Location Path:
UNC Update Location: \\fileserver\profile$
Storage Location: FILESERVER Drive Letter: F:\profile$

Further Information