A. Service Pack 4 introduces PROQUOTA.EXE which is used to limit user quotas.
Profile quotas are enabled by using a system policy.
- Start the System Policy editor (poledit.exe)
- Load the templates Common.adm and Winnt.adm (from the Options menu select "Policy Template" from the %systemroot%\inf directory)
- Create a new policy (File - "New Policy")
- Open Default User, and then expand Windows NT User Profiles.
- When you select Limit Profile Size, the following option are available:
- Custom Message - The text in the dialog box that appears when the user's profile exceeds the quota.
- Max Profile Size - The maximum size of the user profile. This value defaults to 30,000 KB, so administrators will want to carefully consider how low they set this value. This is especially true, given the fact that users will not be able to successfully log off if their profile is too large.
- Include registry in file list - When the user exceeds the profile quota, an error icon appears in the system tray. Double-clicking the icon brings up a tool that lists all the files in the profile, as well as the file size from the largest file to the smallest. By default, the list does not include files that are smaller than 2 KB. Users can consult this list to determine which files can be erased, moved to server-based storage, or backed up to offline storage. When this option is checked, the users' registry settings, Ntuser.dat, will be included in the list. Users cannot delete this file.
- Notify user when profile storage space is exceeded - By default, users will get a dialog box informing them that their user profile is too large only when they attempt to log off. With this option selected, a dialog box appears as soon as the profile reaches the quota size, and at a configurable interval thereafter. - A second option is to select "Exclude directories in roaming profile" which does not include specified directories as part of the users profile
- Once complete save the file to the netlogon share of the domain controller as NTCONFIG.POL
Ensure clients have the PROQUOTA.EXE image by either installation Service Pack 4 on them or manually copy the file to the %systemroot%\system32 directory.
When the clients log back on they will now have their quotas monitored and these can be examined by clicking the Click here to view imagesmall icon.
NOTE: Remember that the user will not be able to log off if the user profile quota is exceeded, and, by default, small files are not listed in the dialog that displays the files contained in the profile. If Internet Explorer 4.x is installed, these small files could include the entries in the Temporary Internet Files folder. This cache uses a small percentage of the total drive space, but can easily grow to be several megabytes in size. To delete these files, the user will need to empty the cache through the Internet Explorer Internet Options dialog box.
If quotas are enabled and the user cannot logoff, the PROQUOTA.EXE process can be killed in Task Manager. This will allow the user to logoff.
The following list describes the registry keys and values for Profile Quotas in the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
- EnableProfileQuotaREG_DWORD0|1 - This setting turns profile quotas on or off.
- ProfileQuotaMessageREG_SZ - Default: "You have exceeded your profile storage space. Before you can log off, you need to move some items from your profile to network or local storage."
- MaxProfileSizeREG_DWORD0x12C-0x7530 - Default: 0x7530 - This setting specifies the quota size in kilobytes.
- WarnUserREG_DWORD0|1 - This setting specifies weather to warn the user as soon as the profile exceeds the quota; not to wait until the user attempts to log off. In addition, it specifies weather to keep prompting the user to reduce the profile size at the interval set in WarnUserTimeout.
- WarnUserTimeoutREG_DWORD0x0-0xFFFFFFFF - Default: 0xF - This setting specifies how often the Warning dialog appears if the WarnUser setting above is turned on.
