'What is a profile?' and Other Profile Questions
For more information, see the following page:
http://studenthelp.itee.uq.edu.au/faq/profile/
Why are Large Profiles Bad?
Simply put:
- Much slower logon/logoff times
- Much more likely to corrupt your profile (which will likely result in the computers not working for you)
- Higher chance of losing your files
In addition to those problems, large profiles will also cause you to go over-quota much faster. This is because of the way the profile is copied back to your network storage during logon and logoff - temporarily, two copies of the files are created, so you can potentially use TWICE the amount of space your profile would normally occupy.
What's Considered Large?
By default, a profile is between 6MB and 15MB. This can grow up to 20MB in some circumstances, but rarely exceeds this. If you're using MORE than 20MB, your profile is probably too large.
How Can I Tell If I Have A Large Profile?
Firstly, any of the following signs almost guarantee a large profile:
- Saving more than a few small (1-2MB) documents in your "My Documents" folder
- Saving Visual Studio Projects in the default location (VS Projects directory in My Documents, see previous point)
- Saving more than a few small (1-2MB) files on your desktop. Shortcuts, URL shortcuts, etc are OK.
- Setting up and using Outlook Express/Thunderbird and using it to read and save mail locally.
- Using Firefox without understanding how the Firefox Cache works, and how to change it to C:\temp.
Of course, you can always check the size of your profile by connecting to \\puffball\profile (for PCs) or \\magic\profile (for Macs),making sure you are viewing all files (including hidden, system, etc), selecting everything, and choosing properties to get the "Size on Disk" of your profile. You'll need to log off and back on again for any changes made in your current session to show up.
Previous Announcement On This Issue
See:
http://studenthelp.itee.uq.edu.au/announcements/desktop.html