Handling user AppData - Windows
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@bbigford I honestly don't. I help them create accounts and sign in. If they are getting a machine upgrade I tell them to get everything in order first.
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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.
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There are extensions for Chrome and Firefox to autobackup of bookmarks.
You could do something like copy all the c:\username\appdata folders for a machine to a file share.\\fileshare\computer1\users\jsmith\appdata\* \\fileshare\computer1\users\auser\appdata\* \\fileshare\computer2\users\jdoe\appdata\* -
@jmoore said in Handling user AppData - Windows:
@bbigford I honestly don't. I help them create accounts and sign in. If they are getting a machine upgrade I tell them to get everything in order first.
This is in the event of a critical system crash. Drive dies without warning.
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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.
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.
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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.
