samba - Dec 2012 - Roaming Profiles - WinXP and Win7

Hello All,

Today I was able to implement Samba4 as a DC with AD in a test 
environment. I eventually got it all working and was able to join the 
domain from two different virtual machines. I was also able to set up a 
roaming profile share and configure a user to utilize this share. My 
issue is that when I first logged into the domain after setting up the 
roaming profiles I did so from a Windows XP machine. the user's roaming 
directory was correctly created an all profile data stored. However, 
when I logged out of the Windows XP machine and logged back in from a 
Windows 7 machine another (totally separate) user profile directory was 
created with a .V2 appended to it. The two profiles do not talk to one 
another and exist on their own. In my opinion this cripples the roaming 
profile functionality unless your enter network is make up of computers 
using the same OS. Is this a bug, or is there a solution to this behavior.

Thanks for any insight.

-- 
Regards,
Aaron J. Wood
Vice President & Chief of Operations
Sun Tire Services, Inc.

On Fri, 14 Dec 2012, Aaron Wood wrote:
> In my opinion this cripples the roaming profile functionality unless 
> your enter network is make up of computers using the same OS. Is this a 
> bug, or is there a solution to this behavior.
It's not a bug, and there is no solution, since it is designed that way. 
Windows XP and Windows 7 (and others) cannot share common profiles, even
if you are fully Windows all the way.

Steve

> (...) is there a solution to this behavior.
>
Partial folder redirection?

On 14/12/12 04:29 PM, Aaron Wood wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> Today I was able to implement Samba4 as a DC with AD in a test 
> environment. I eventually got it all working and was able to join the 
> domain from two different virtual machines. I was also able to set up 
> a roaming profile share and configure a user to utilize this share. My 
> issue is that when I first logged into the domain after setting up the 
> roaming profiles I did so from a Windows XP machine. the user's 
> roaming directory was correctly created an all profile data stored. 
> However, when I logged out of the Windows XP machine and logged back 
> in from a Windows 7 machine another (totally separate) user profile 
> directory was created with a .V2 appended to it. The two profiles do 
> not talk to one another and exist on their own. In my opinion this 
> cripples the roaming profile functionality unless your enter network 
> is make up of computers using the same OS. Is this a bug, or is there 
> a solution to this behavior.
>
> Thanks for any insight.
You get the same problem in Linux - trying to share a home folder for an 
account where they are running different versions of the same window 
manager or different versions of Linux. The various resource files are 
not always compatible so you are out of luck trying to share everything.

I wouldn't even try to get it to work. Just accept that Windows 7 
profiles are different from Windows XP profiles.

> 
>> (...) is there a solution to this behavior.
>> 
> 
> Partial folder redirection?
Why partial? Are there folders not to redirect?

Regards,
Thierry