Supporting Users Who Travel Between Computers

How to Configure Windows Clients for Traveling Users

Setting up roaming user profiles for a Windows client involves different steps, depending on the client you are supporting. Microsoft Windows NT Workstation clients are automatically set up for roaming user profiles. Microsoft Windows 98 and Windows 95 clients must be configured to support roaming before your user profiles can roam.

For roaming user profiles to work, you must use the same drive and directory names for the Windows client on each computer that the user travels to. For example, if you install Windows in C:\Windows on one computer, and in C:\Win or D:\Windows on other computers, some components of the user profile are not transferred successfully between the computers.

Note   Roaming user profiles are platform-specific. Because of differences between the Windows registry and the Windows NT registry, users cannot travel between Windows 95/98 and Windows NT or Windows 2000.

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Configure Windows NT Workstation clients for traveling users

Windows NT clients support roaming user profiles and traveling users with the least amount of administrative cost. Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 and Windows 2000 Professional are both automatically set up for traveling users. Both operating systems have user profiles turned on by default, and both store user files in the user profile. All you need to do is to configure the user account on the domain server.

Note   Users’ data for digital identification does not roam to other computers. Instead, users with digital identification must store their encryption keys on a diskette and copy them to a new computer at their destination.

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Configure Windows 98 clients for traveling users

Windows 98 was designed with traveling users in mind. Windows 98 stores files in the Application Data folder, where they can be retrieved and replicated easily. User profiles are available, although they are not turned on by default.

To enable traveling users for Windows 98

1. On the client computer, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Passwords icon.
3. Click the User Profiles tab, and then click Users can customize.

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Configure Windows 95 clients for traveling users

You can modify Windows 95 to support traveling users by installing Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later and by turning on user profiles. When you install Internet Explorer 4.0, you mimic the environment found in Windows 98. Internet Explorer Setup creates the Application Data folder and stores files there, making it easy to retrieve them as part of the user profile.

To enable traveling users for Windows 95

1. Install Internet Explorer 4.0 or later on the client computer.
2. On the client computer, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
3. Double-click the Passwords icon.
4. Click the User Profiles tab, and then click Users can customize.

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See also

You can set profile information for all of the users in your organization at one time by using a system policy. For more information about system policies, see Managing Users’ Options with System Policies.