User Profiles

What is a User Profile? (also called a Roaming Profile)

A user profile is a record of user-specific data that defines a user's work space.

When you log into a campus computer with your Capitan or Discovery account you create or access your personal user profile. Your profile includes such things as:

• Files stored in My Documents
• Files and shortcuts saved on your Desktop (including your Recycle bin)
• Desktop configurations such as wallpaper and special screensavers
• Details on mapped drives and installed printers
• For faculty and staff it includes Outlook configuration information, and installed printers.
• Internet Explorer shortcuts, history, cookies and temporary Internet files

Your U: drive is not considered to be part of your profile

Two Types of Profiles - Roaming and Local

Roaming Profile

All students and most faculty and staff have a roaming profile. A roaming profile is stored on the server. When you log into a campus computer this profile is loaded onto the local machine. This allows you to keep the same profile with you as you move around campus. This is very useful if you work on a number of different computers and require easy access to shared drives, printers and other items from different on-campus locations. A drawback is if there are network problems, the profile may not load and a user will be given the default profile on the computer.

You should try to keep the size of your roaming profile small for the following reasons:

• The larger your profile, the longer it will take to log into a computer.
• You have a 250MB quota for your profile. Files stored in your profile can take twice as much room as if they were stored in your U: drive. When you log in, your profile is loaded onto the local machine and still stored on the server (so it can be loaded in more than one location at a time). When you log out, your profile is resaved to the server (including any changes). Your original profile remains on the server until your newer profile is successfully saved to the server, so for short periods of time both profiles are saved on the server (and both are calculated in your quota). If you do not have enough room in your quota for both copies of your profile, the server will not be able to save your new profile (with any changes you have made). For this reason files should never be stored on your desktop or in My Documents but in your U: drive.
• For this reasons above you should not let your profile exceed 125 MB

Roaming profiles can cause problems for Faculty and staff laptop users. You may wish to request that your roaming profile be disabled.

Local Profile

Some Faculty and staff have local profiles. A local profile is only stored on the hard drive of the specific computer the user is logged in to, and is not backed up. This is a good solution if a user tends to use the same computer on a regular basis. A local profile will load much faster than a roaming profile.

top

Size Matters

You can determine the size of your profile, and if you are unsure determine if it local or roaming, by using the following steps:

1. Right-click the the My Computer icon and select Properties
2. Click on the Advanced tab
3. Under the User Profiles section click on the Settings button (this can take several seconds to open)

You will see the size of your profile and the type.

Roaming Profile Cleanup

Quick and Easy Ways to reduce the size of your Roaming Profile

• Empty Temporary Internet Files and Cookies
  • Open an Internet Explorer window and go to Tools -> Internet Options
  • Under the Temporary Internet Files section click the Delete Files... and Delete Cookies... buttons
  • Click OK to close the window
• Reduce the amount of disk space used by Temporary Internet files
  • Open an Internet Explorer window and go to Tools -> Internet Options
  • Under the Temporary Internet Files section click the Settings... Button
  • Lower the Amount of disk space to use (for example 10MB)
  • Click OK, then OK again to close window
• Empty Internet History (or reduce the number of days the History is kept)
  • Open an Internet Explorer window and go to Tools -> Internet Options
  • Under the History section click the Clear History button and/or reduce the number of days the History is maintained
  • Click OK to close the window
• Empty the Recycle bin
• Move files and folders from your desktop or My Documents to your U: drive
• Google Desktop and Windows Desktop Search users - Desktop Search programs should NOT be installed on VIU computers or laptops. There is no easy way to manage the size of the index files they creates, and these can grow to 4 - 8GB in size. These files are stored in your profile. *For Faculty & Staff* - there may be an alternate indexing service available, please contact the IT Helpdesk.
• Google Earth users - Google Earth stores information about the maps you have visited in a cache file. This file can easily grow to take up your entire quota.
  • See the Technology FAQs page and search for Google Earth for more information

top

Links:

Managing your Quota