2 Autocad profiles, one for Office, one for Home vpn users?

[Anonymous]

Is  there a way to setup 2 profiles one for office use which connects to our shared drive for custom settings, and one for users at home that connect through vpn that looks at the local c drive for setttings.  Possibly two different icons on the desktop. 

Our users are complaining of slow performance at home through vpn.  All users have cable or faster speeds at home.  Users have laptops that they take home, all are Windows 7 64bit 8GB ram, connecting through Microsoft VPN.

TIA,

Benny

[mdhutchinson]

What do they need while at home via VPN?  Autodesk Licnese manager?

Cutomization, CAD standards, Tool palettes, etc

I have standard autocad profile regardless of where the computer is located. In the office we have P drive mapped to user's personal location on the server... for main cui that the user can customize and profiles stored for safe keeping. Enterprise cui is on a server mapped as X. When the user is at home and boots the computer, a batch file in startup folder maps local P, X and J drives. This way the profile can be the same whether at home, office, or on a job site. The batch file checks for the existance of our server, and if it does not find it, then it does the mapping to the local harddrive.

So when a computer is scheduled out of the office... I copy down the CAD Standards, menu system, support folders, etc to the local harddrive.

[Anonymous]

MD, thanks for the detailed response.  We have the exact same setup as you.  The users are complaining a slow performance so I wanted to remove the amount of data exchange, by creating a local profile on the c:drive while they were at home connecting through vpn. 

They need everything they do at home like at the office.  These are standalone licenses.

I spent all day yesterday testing and may have it figured out.  I copied all the customization folders to the local c:, then created a local profile from our existing .arg file and created two shortcuts on the desktop, one pointing to network and one pointing to c:drive.  Going to begin testing with one  user this week.  The only issue I see here is when the network folder gets updated, will need to update the local folder as well.

Let me know what you think...

[mdhutchinson]

mapping local drives with folder structure on C drive that is identical to network drive and locations works well for us. We have highly customized AutoCAD MEP etc..... using identical profiles whether home, office or job site allows you to keep the same paths for all customization, folder locations, Content Catalog, Content Browser, XRef/project paths etc. All we need do then to update the files on their C drive is to copy down changed content from the server.

Do you use XRefs?...

[Anonymous]

No we don't use Xrefs, but would it be beneficial? 

Ok will continue to go the local route.

[mdhutchinson]

This is AutoCAD Architectural you are on I would assume... If AutoCAD Arch, is your firm multi-discipline or do you work with outside engineering for structural, MEP, electrical, etc?