Handling user AppData - Windows
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@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
But I have had so many issues with redirecting AppData, and various forums also say that's not a good thing to do because of weird issues that can occur with bringing over AppData to a new PC.
I chose to leave AppData alone. I had a bad experience bringing over some info from AppData when it caused a few issues. I ended up creating a new profile and starting over with those couple users.
Some users will use a Firefox or Google account to store their bookmarks. For others who don't want to or don't care, I have them export their bookmarks to their redirected My Documents folder on occasion or during a pc refresh. It has worked for a long time with no major issues.
I don't have half as many users as you do though.
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@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
Some of my users including myself too. Create a Mozilla and Google account and we just use our own work email address when signing up.
We do the same, makes it pretty easy for us.
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@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
You could set up a task scheduler to backup up the Firefox/Chrome and Signatures.
Great idea to use task scheduler, I hadn't thought of that. Will test!
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@bbigford Oh I see. We have shared drives they are supposed to save everything on. Together with signing into Google or Mozilla prevents most problems for us. It's been about 3 years since someone complained about losing something here.
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@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
Some of my users including myself too. Create a Mozilla and Google account and we just use our own work email address when signing up.
You could set up a task scheduler to backup up the Firefox/Chrome and Signatures.
Good idea for a few users (I sign into Firefox with my work account to back up my bookmarks related to work). But I'm looking at this for hundreds of users; possibly thousands.
I guess you can provide them a script that they have to run manually to backup bookmarks and signatures to a shared drive.
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@black3dynamite Task scheduler for that too
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@black3dynamite Yes this is good, you could deploy a shortcut or script on their desktop, then they could manually run it or you could schedule task to do so.
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@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
Some of my users including myself too. Create a Mozilla and Google account and we just use our own work email address when signing up.
You could set up a task scheduler to backup up the Firefox/Chrome and Signatures.
Good idea for a few users (I sign into Firefox with my work account to back up my bookmarks related to work). But I'm looking at this for hundreds of users; possibly thousands.
I guess you can provide them a script that they have to run manually to backup bookmarks and signatures to a shared drive.
Goal is to automate, doing things manual introduces too much human error.
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@bbigford your totally right
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@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@black3dynamite said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
Some of my users including myself too. Create a Mozilla and Google account and we just use our own work email address when signing up.
You could set up a task scheduler to backup up the Firefox/Chrome and Signatures.
Good idea for a few users (I sign into Firefox with my work account to back up my bookmarks related to work). But I'm looking at this for hundreds of users; possibly thousands.
I guess you can provide them a script that they have to run manually to backup bookmarks and signatures to a shared drive.
Goal is to automate, doing things manual introduces too much human error.
I totally agree with the manual approach can cause too much human error.
Looks like Google Chrome has an option to set user data directory by using
--user-data-dircommand line flag. There is an option when using Chrome Policy templates to set directory too. -
For the Outlook sigs, just copy them from a sent message.
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I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
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@wrx7m said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
For the Outlook sigs, just copy them from a sent message.
Trying to do as little manual configuration long term as possible. Trying to automate everything.
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I only use a My Documents redirect. The rest can be quite a pain to deal with.
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@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
Relying on users to log in is too much manual. Needs to be fully automated where possible.
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@wrx7m said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I only use a My Documents redirect. The rest can be quite a pain to deal with.
Agreed. I don't typically care about AppData.
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@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
Relying on users to log in is too much manual. Needs to be fully automated where possible.
I get it...
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@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
Relying on users to log in is too much manual. Needs to be fully automated where possible.
Are you the one that creates their signatures in the first place? If not, they can copy and paste that from a sent message in a few seconds. It is way easier than creating a signature from scratch.
Edit: Also, how often do you have a system fail this bad, where copying and pasting a signature is TMW?
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@wrx7m said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
Relying on users to log in is too much manual. Needs to be fully automated where possible.
Are you the one that creates their signatures in the first place? If not, they can copy and paste that from a sent message in a few seconds. It is way easier than creating a signature from scratch.
Edit: Also, how often do you have a system fail this bad, where copying and pasting a signature is TMW?
Unless they have multipe RDS servers
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@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@wrx7m said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
Relying on users to log in is too much manual. Needs to be fully automated where possible.
Are you the one that creates their signatures in the first place? If not, they can copy and paste that from a sent message in a few seconds. It is way easier than creating a signature from scratch.
Edit: Also, how often do you have a system fail this bad, where copying and pasting a signature is TMW?
Unless they have multipe RDS servers
@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@wrx7m said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@bbigford said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@dbeato said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
I responded to you on another forum but basically I said was Sync bookmarks through Firefox and Chrome Sync with their accounts. For signatures copy it from a sent message.
Relying on users to log in is too much manual. Needs to be fully automated where possible.
Are you the one that creates their signatures in the first place? If not, they can copy and paste that from a sent message in a few seconds. It is way easier than creating a signature from scratch.
Edit: Also, how often do you have a system fail this bad, where copying and pasting a signature is TMW?
Unless they have multipe RDS servers
Good point. I didn't see RDS in the OP, though.
Also, I would hope his RDS servers are regularly backed up (including user profiles)
