Deploying to Roaming Users | Microsoft Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit (Pro-Resource Kit)

Traveling users (sometimes referred to as roaming users) move between different computers on a network. By using Microsoft Office 2003, roaming users can move between computers without changing the way they work. Their application settings and working files travel with them, along with any system preferences.

Roaming user profiles make it possible for users to travel from one computer to another on the network. Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional both support roaming user profiles, as do Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, and third-party servers. Office 2003 takes advantage of the operating system’s features to make Office settings travel with users.

When you turn on roaming user profiles, users can switch between computers as long as they log on to the same network and retrieve their user information from that network. This flexibility helps you make the most of your computer resources.

Preparing Office for roaming users

Users are able to travel easily from computer to computer when their documents and application preferences travel with them. This convenience requires that you configure the Microsoft Office 2003 installation and the operating system to support users who travel.

Operating system recommendations

Roaming works best when users travel between client computers that use the same version of the same operating system:

Use a consistent version of the operating system.

For example, Windows 2000 to Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional to Windows XP Professional, and so on.
Use a consistent operating system language.

Office installation recommendations

Roaming users rely on user profiles to transfer their individual settings. However, roaming is more successful when the computers to which they travel have Office installed in a consistent way:

Use the same version of Office.

Ensure that the same language version and release version of Microsoft Office are installed on all computers that users roam between.
Install Office using the same installation method on each computer.

Install Office as either per-user or per-computer, but do not use a combination of these. To save both hard disk space and download time, install Office on a per-computer basis on every computer. This method ensures that the installation information is shared by all users of that computer, so it does not need to be stored separately for each user.
Install Office to the same drive and folder on each computer.

If users travel from a computer that has Office installed on drive C to a computer that has Office installed on drive D, or if users travel from a computer that has Office installed in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office to a computer that has Office installed in C:\Program Files\Office, their shortcuts and customized settings might not work correctly.
Install Office from an administrative installation point, and not from a compressed CD image.
Install Office applications to run from the network.

If you install the Office applications on the network, these applications are always available to roaming users, as long as your network is running. With the applications on the network, you also cut down on the number of files and other objects that must be copied to each hard disk when users travel to a new computer.
Install crucial Office applications to run from the local hard disk.

You can install the Office applications that users need most to run from the local hard disk. For example, if everyone uses Microsoft Office Word 2003 on a daily basis to work on reports, memos, and other documents, you can help to ensure that their work is not interrupted by server problems by installing Word 2003 on the local hard disk.

User information recommendations

Creating a standard Office configuration for all users and storing user information on a server ensures that roaming users have access to their application settings, files, and folders from any computer on the network:

Store user information on the network.

When you configure a user profile for use by a roaming user, it is copied to the network and then downloaded when the user travels to a new computer. To make roaming even easier, you can also store other information, such as your users’ My Documents or Personal folders, on a server so that users can open those documents from any computer they are using.

Tip

If you store user information on a file server, rather than your Primary Domain Controller (PDC), you can balance the load on your servers more efficiently. For more information about load balancing, see your network documentation.

Create a default Office user profile.

You can use the Office 2003 Profile Wizard to save a set of Office options called an Office user profile. You can start all of your users with the same configuration by creating and deploying a default Office user profile when you deploy Office 2003.

Set policies.

You can help to protect or enforce important settings through policies. For example, if you want all users to save files in a particular format, you can set the file type to use through a policy.

Tip

Make sure that user profiles and policies give users the required permissions to install the applications they need when they travel to a new computer. For example, you can advertise Office, which allows any user to install Office 2003 features as if the user were an administrator for that computer.

Resources and related information

You can use the Profile Wizard to create an Office profile and give your roaming users a standard environment to start from. For more information about using the Office Profile Wizard, see “Customizing User-defined Settings” in Chapter 4, “Customizing Office 2003.”

You can set policies to help control which options are available to your roaming users. For more information about policies, see “Managing Users’ Configurations by Policy” in Chapter 18, “Updating Users’ Office 2003 Configurations.”

Roaming users rely on roaming user profiles to track their user information. For more information about roaming user profiles in Windows 2000 or later, look up User profiles in the Windows 2000 Server documentation.

Customizing Office for roaming users

You can get the optimal performance out of Office 2003 for your roaming users by customizing certain Office installation settings, and by configuring user profiles so that user data is available from any computer on the network.

Customizing the Office installation

There are several settings that you can change in the Custom Installation Wizard to make it easier to set up Office 2003 for roaming users. For example, setting Office applications to run from the network eliminates the need for Windows to copy Office applications to a user’s computer the first time the user logs on to that computer.

To customize the Office 2003 installation for roaming users

Start the Custom Installation Wizard.
On the Specify Default Path and Organization page, verify that <Program Files>\Microsoft Office appears in the Default installation path box.
On the Set Feature Installation States page, set the installation state for Microsoft Office to Run from Network.

To set a critical or frequently used application to run from the local hard disk, set the installation state for the application to Run from My Computer.
On the Customize Default Application Settings page, click Get values from an existing settings profile and then type the path to your Office profile settings file (OPS file).
On the Modify Setup Properties page, set the property TRANSFORMSATSOURCE to True to apply MST files from the root of the administrative installation point, instead of caching them on the local computer.
Make any other customizations in the wizard, and then click Finish.

Managing user profiles

Users who roam from one computer to another on the network rely on roaming user profiles to track their user information, and on servers to make sure that the user profile information travels with them. To support roaming users, you must set up both client and server computers with roaming user profiles (profiles that travel with the user account). Roaming user profiles are stored on the server and automatically downloaded to the client computer when users log on.

With roaming user profiles, roaming users can log on to any computer on the network and download their user profile information. When users change any of their settings, the profile is automatically updated on the server when they log off, and their new information is automatically updated, too.

Note

During Setup, Windows Installer lets you set Office applications to Installed on First Use. This installation option works on a per-computer basis rather than on a per-user basis, so Windows Installer cannot track which applications your users have installed as they travel between computers. Your users’ application settings travel, but not the specific applications that have been installed on a particular computer. When users log on to the new computer and attempt to open an application, they might have to wait while the application is installed.

Microsoft Office 2003 helps roaming users by storing all application data (such as user information, working files, and settings and preferences) in the Application Data folder for easy retrieval by the profile. All files that reside in the Application Data folder are available to the user from any computer in the network. The Application Data folder is located under %SystemRoot%\Documents and Settings\%Username%.

Note

Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 stores some files in folder locations that do not roam with users. In addition, in certain configurations Outlook must open files that it cannot access from a network share. For more information, see “Configuring Outlook for Roaming Users” in Chapter 8, “Special Deployment Scenarios for Outlook 2003.”

Special considerations for international travelers

Because operating systems differ in their support of some languages, users who are traveling internationally can take their roaming user profiles to another computer only when both the source and destination computers use the same code page.

Within the limitations of multilingual support in various operating systems, you can make accommodations for users who travel internationally. Windows 2000 Professional or later with support for multiple languages allows users to take roaming user profiles from one computer to another. However, users can only roam between computers that have Multilingual User Interface Packs (MUI Packs) installed or between computers that have localized versions of the operating system installed. They cannot roam from a computer with a MUI Pack to a computer with a localized version of the operating system.

For example, if you do not want to use the English version of the operating system in foreign subsidiaries, you can install Windows 2000 Professional configured with the MUI Pack. Roaming users can set the locale of their operating system, travel to any other computer running Windows 2000 Professional, and take their roaming user profiles with them.

However, if international users need the Office MUI Pack to display the user interface and online Help in another language, you must install the Office MUI Pack on computers that will be used by roaming users. Just as with Office, set the MUI Pack to be installed on a per-computer basis, and install it on the same drive (such as drive C or D) throughout your organization.

Tip

When roaming users log on to the network, their roaming user profiles are downloaded to their new location. For users who travel abroad, it might be more efficient to set them up to use a local server at their destination rather than downloading large amounts of data from their original domain.

Resources and related information

If all roaming users have the Office Multilingual User Interface Pack, they can use the Office MUI Pack to run the user interface and online Help in any supported language. For more information about the plug-in language capability of Office, see “Overview of Office 2003 Multilingual Resources” in Chapter 13, “Preparing for an Office Multilingual Deployment.”

Office does not automatically uninstall Office MUI Pack files. If a roaming user leaves behind a set of languages, you might want to delete the associated language files. For more information, see “Removing Office Multilingual Resource Files” in Chapter 16, “Maintaining an Office 2003 Multilingual Installation.”