Roaming User Profile Does Not Roam Correctly Using Multiple Computers

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You configure a user to use roaming user profile, and the user logs on to several computers in varied sequence and logs off in a random order from these computers. The user's roaming user profile does not roam across the multiple computers as the user anticipates.

Possible Cause:

A user logs on to multiple computers at the same time. When logging off from these computers, if the user logs off in a different order, this can cause odd behavior with the roaming user profile. The user fails to receive his or her roaming user profile on one or more of the computers.

Diagnostic Tests:

To check to see if a user receives his or her roaming user profile

Perform the following steps on each of the computers on which the user logs on:

  1. Right-click My Computer on the desktop.

  2. Click Properties on the shortcut menu.

  3. Click the User Profiles tab.
    Depending on the number of users who have logged on to each specific computer, there might be a different number of users listed on this page.

  4. Locate the user entry on this list below Profiles stored on this computer .

  5. If the Type is Roaming on all the computers, the user is successfully receiving his or her roaming user profile.

  6. If the Type is Local, the user is not receiving his or her roaming user profile.

To find out why the roaming user profile is not available

  1. Ping the file server that contains the roaming user profile to confirm network connectivity.

  2. Check to see that the user has enough file security to write his or her profile to this network location.

  3. Check for a registry leak. A registry leak is a fault caused when the registry is not properly closed after it is accessed. When a registry leak occurs, the user profile cannot roam. Look for Event Viewer entries similar to the following:

    Windows cannot unload your registry class file. If you have a roaming profile, your settings are not replicated. Contact your administrator.

  4. Open the Event Viewer snap-in on the user's computer (Eventwr.msc).

  5. Look for the following event in the application log:

    Event ID: 1000

    Category: None

    Windows cannot unload your registry file. If you have a roaming profile, your settings are not replicated. Contact your administrator.