Supporting Traveling Users

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Preparing Microsoft Project for Roaming Users
System Requirements for Traveling Users
Preparing Microsoft Project for Traveling Users
Customizing Installation for Traveling Users
Managing User Profiles
Special Considerations for International Travelers
Configuring Windows Servers for Traveling Users
Configuring Windows Clients for Traveling Users

Microsoft® Project 2002 makes it easier than ever to support users who travel between computers on a network. With new installation options and an improved model for storing user preferences, users can travel and take their Microsoft Project 2002 documents and settings with them.

Preparing Microsoft Project for Roaming Users

Traveling users (sometimes referred to as roaming users) move between different computers on a network. By using Microsoft Project 2002, traveling users can move between computers without changing the way that they work. Their application settings and working files travel with them, along with any system preferences.

It's possible for users to travel because of roaming user profiles. Microsoft Windows® 98, Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), Windows NT® Workstation version 4.0, Windows 2000 Professional, and Windows XP support roaming user profiles, as do Windows NT Server 4.0, Windows 2000 Server, and third-party servers. Microsoft Project 2002 takes advantage of the operating systems' features to allow Microsoft Project settings to travel with your users.

When you enable roaming user profiles, you can keep employees working, no matter where they happen to be. Users can switch between computers in a lab, in different buildings, or in different offices around the world, 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.

Example

If your company has several offices in one region, you can take advantage of roaming user profiles to make these offices work like one office.

For example, you might have a manager who is currently working on a project that includes confidential resource information, which is included in a few hidden columns. He customizes his toolbar to include a button that hides or displays hidden columns of resource information. This gets stored in his Global.mpt file, which is part of his user profile (since it is stored under the <user profile>\Application Data folder).

He is called to a meeting with the Finance group to go over the information he's just been working on. He logs off his computer, thus updating his user profile. During the meeting, he logs on to a computer in the conference room and retrieves his project file, and then he uses his customized toolbar to display the hidden columns. He's able to review his arguments as the meeting goes along, and make his arguments to the Finance group.

Sharing Computers Among Multiple Users

If your company doesn't fit the typical "one user to one computer" scenario, you can use roaming user profiles to make sure that your users always have access to their information on whatever computer they are using that day.

For example, several users might take advantage of computers in your lab on an as-needed basis. One user logs on to work on a project in Microsoft Project. He saves his project as a template so that he can use it again to create his next report. When he logs off, his user profile is updated with the change.

Later that same day, another user logs on to the same computer, and opens Microsoft Project to create a project. She uses the New command (File menu), and selects an available template from the standard list. The template that her co-worker created does not appear in this list.

System Requirements for Traveling Users

To set up roaming user profiles for your traveling users, your server and client computers must have the following software installed.

Server Requirements

  • Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0, or Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

Client Requirements

Other Requirements

  • Administrator or User privileges are required for all user and computer accounts. Accounts with Guest privileges do not travel.

See Also

For additional information about setting up roaming user profiles on your Windows NT network, see the Windows NT Server 4.0 Resource Kit on Microsoft TechNet.

For additional information about user profiles and your client operating system, see the product documentation for Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation 4.0, Windows XP, or Windows 2000 Professional.

Preparing Microsoft Project for Traveling Users

Users can travel easily between computers when their documents and application preferences travel with them. This requires configuring the Microsoft Project 2002 installation to make it easier for users to travel, and configuring the operating system to support users who travel. Consider these guidelines:

  • Use a consistent version of the operating system
  • Use a consistent operating system language
  • Use a consistent version of Microsoft Project
  • Install Microsoft Project on a per-computer, rather than per-user, basis
  • Install Microsoft Project to run from the network   
  • Install Microsoft Project to run from the local hard disk   
  • Install Microsoft Project by using the same installation method on each computer
  • Install Microsoft Project 2002 to the same folder on each computer   
  • Store user information on the network
  • Create a default Microsoft Project user profile   
  • Set system policies

See Also

You can use the Profile Wizard to create a Microsoft Project profile and give your traveling users a standard environment to start from. For more information about using the Profile Wizard, see the Profile Wizard resource kit article.

Traveling users rely on roaming user profiles to track their user information. For more information about roaming user profiles, see the Profile Wizard resource kit article.

For more information about system policies, see the Using System Policies resource kit article.

Customizing Installation for Traveling Users

You can get the best performance out of Microsoft Project for your traveling users by carefully customizing certain installation settings, and by configuring user profiles so that user data is available from any computer on the network.

To customize the Microsoft Project 2002 installation for traveling users

  1. Start the Custom Installation Wizard.
  1. On the Specify Default Path and Organization panel, verify that < Program Files>\Microsoft Office appears in the Default installation path box.
  1. On the Set Feature Installation States panel, click the down arrow next to Microsoft Project. Select Run from Network if the network is always available to traveling users and you want Microsoft Project to run off the network.
  1. On the Customize Default Application Setting panel, click Get values from an existing settings profile and then type the path to your Microsoft Project profile settings (OPS) file.
  1. On the Modify Setup Properties panel, set the property TRANSFORMSATSOURCE to Cache Transforms locally in a secure location.
  1. If your users need to roam to a computer that does not support Windows Installer shortcuts, on the Add, Modify, or Remove Shortcuts page, clear the Create Windows Installer shortcuts if supported check box.

Windows Installer Shortcuts and Roaming Users

Windows Installer shortcuts are supported on Windows XP, Windows Me, and Windows 2000. They are also supported on Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6a, if you have Internet Explorer 4.01 SP-1 or later installed with Microsoft Active Desktop™, or Internet Explorer 5.01 or later installed with Windows Desktop Update.

When a user logs into a computer with roaming user profiles enabled, Windows automatically copies the user's shortcuts from the server to the user's computer. If Microsoft Project Setup creates Windows Installer shortcuts, but the user logs on to a computer without Windows Installer shortcut support, the shortcuts will not work. However, if the user runs Microsoft Project once on a computer that supports Windows Installer shortcuts, the shortcuts are modified to include the path. If the user then runs Microsoft Project on a computer without Windows Installer shortcut support, and Microsoft Project is installed in the same folder structure, the shortcuts will work correctly.

If you clear the Create Windows Installers shortcuts if supported check box in the Custom Installation Wizard, Setup installs only standard shortcuts, which function properly on any Windows operating system. Standard shortcuts include the folder path for the application, so you must install Microsoft Project into the same folder hierarchy on each computer so that the folder path entries in the shortcuts are correct on each computer. Standard shortcuts do not allow for advertising of applications or features.

Managing User Profiles

Traveling users rely on user profiles to track their user information and on servers to make sure that the user profile information travels with them. To support traveling 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 are automatically downloaded to the client computer when the users log on.

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

Microsoft Project 2002 helps traveling 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.

The Application Data folder is stored in different places on a computer, depending on the operating system. The following table identifies the default locations for the Application Data folder for each operating system.

Installation scenario

Default location for Application Data folder

Installing Windows 98 or Windows Me

\Windows\Profiles\%Username%

Upgrading to Windows 2000 from Windows 98 or Windows Me

%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%

Installing Windows NT 4.0

\Winnt\Profiles\%Username%

Upgrading to Windows 2000 from Windows NT 4.0

\Winnt\Profiles\%Username%

Installing Windows 2000

%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%

The one folder that does not roam with users in the default roaming scenario is the Local Settings folder under %Username%.

Microsoft Project 2002 stores all user-specific settings in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER sub tree in the Windows registry. (Previous versions of Microsoft Project stored these settings in both the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE sub trees.) With all the Microsoft Project 2002 settings in one place, it's easier to retrieve settings and keep the user profile up to date.

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 accommodate users who travel internationally. The following operating systems allow users to take roaming user profiles from one computer to another:

  • Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 or Windows 98. In this case, both the destination computer and the source computer must use the same language version of the operating system.
  • Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP with support for multiple languages.

For example, if your organization is based in the United States, but your users travel frequently to Europe and Asia, you can install the English version of Windows NT Workstation 4.0 or Windows 98 on all computers available to traveling users. This arrangement allows traveling users to take their Microsoft Project 2002 settings and files with them.

Alternatively, if you do not want to use the English version of the operating system in foreign subsidiaries, you can install Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP configured with the Multilanguage User Interface (MUI). Traveling users can set the locale of their operating system, travel to any other computer running Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP, and take their roaming user profiles with them.

If international users need the Microsoft Project 2002 MUI Pack to display the user interface and Help in another language, install the MUI Pack on computers that traveling users will use. Just as with Microsoft Project, install the MUI Pack on a per-computer basis, and install it on the same drive (such as drive C or D) throughout your organization.

See Also

If all traveling users have Microsoft Project 2002 with the MUI Pack, they can use it to run the user interface and Help in any supported language. For more information about MUI Packs, see the Overview of International Features resource kit article.

Microsoft Project 2002 does not automatically uninstall MUI Pack files. If a traveling user leaves behind a set of languages, you might want to delete the associated language files. For more information about deleting MUI Packs, see the Overview of International Features resource kit article.

Configuring Windows Servers for Traveling Users

Setting up roaming user profiles for a Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 2000 network involves two steps on the server side:

  1. Create a shared Profiles folder on the server in which to store roaming user profiles.
  1. Update client user profiles to point to this shared Profiles folder.

After you update the profile information to point to the shared Profiles folder, the profile is retrieved automatically when the user logs on and updated automatically when the user logs off. This retrieving and updating process is known as "reconciling the user profile."

Creating a Profiles Folder on the Server

The Profiles folder stores all your roaming user profiles on an NTFS file system drive on the server. Make sure your traveling users have full control permissions to their subfolders so that they can update their profiles whenever they change computers. However, do not give users access to any subfolders other than their own.

Updating Client User Profiles to Point to the Profiles Folder

You update all your client user profiles on the PDC server.

To update user profile information for each traveling user using Windows NT 4.0
  1. On the PDC server, click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools (Common), and then click User Manager for Domains.
  1. In the list of user names, double-click a user name.
  1. In the User Properties box, click Profile.
  1. In the User Profile Path box, type the full path to the Profiles folder you created (for a Windows NT Workstation client).
To update user profile information for each traveling user using Windows 2000 Server
  1. On the PDC server, click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
  1. Click Local Users and Groups, click Users, and then double-click a user name.
  1. In the User Properties box, click the Profile tab.
  1. In the Profile Path box for the user, type the full path to the Profiles folder you created (for a Windows NT Workstation or Windows 2000 client).

See Also

For additional information about setting up roaming user profiles on your Windows NT network, see the Windows NT Server 4.0 Resource Kit.

You can set profile information for all of the users in your organization at once by using a system policy. For more information about system policies, see the Using System Policies resource kit article.

For more information about using the Profile Wizard to create user profiles, see the Profile Wizard resource kit article.

Configuring Windows Clients for Traveling Users

Setting up roaming user profiles for a Microsoft Windows client involves different steps, depending on the client you are supporting. Microsoft Windows NT Workstation, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 clients are automatically configured to allow roaming user profiles. Windows 98 and Windows Me clients must be configured to support roaming before your user profiles can roam.

For roaming user profiles to work, you must use the same drive and directory names for the Windows client on each computer that the user travels to. For example, if you install Windows in the C:\Windows folder on one computer, and in the C:\Win or D:\Windows folders on other computers, some components of the user profile will not be transferred successfully between the computers.

Configuring Windows NT Workstation and Windows 2000 Clients for Traveling Users

Windows NT, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 clients support roaming user profiles and traveling users with the least amount of administrative cost. Windows NT Workstation version 4.0, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 Professional are automatically configured to allow traveling users. These operating systems have user profiles enabled by default, and they store user files in the user profile. All you need to do is to configure the user account on the domain server.

Configuring Windows 98 or Windows Me Clients for Traveling Users

Windows 98 and Windows Me operating systems store files in the Application Data folder, where they can be retrieved and replicated easily. User profiles are available, although they are not enabled by default.

To enable traveling users for Windows 98 or Windows Me
  1. On the client computer, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
  1. Double-click the Passwords icon.
  1. Click the User Profiles tab, and then click Users can customize.

See Also

You can set profile information for all the users in your organization at one time by using a system policy. For more information about system policies, see the Using System Policies resource kit article.