assistance on setting up new company workspace

Question

Hello all, 
 
 I am an engineer who has been tasked with upgrading our workspace to newer times. With all new computers shipping with Windows 10 and SS2 no longer being supported, out hand has been forced in upgrading... 
 I have high design skills but only intermediate knowledge of how MicroStation "innards" works. 
 We have been using SS2 (MicroStation and PowerDraft) for over 10 years. The workspace/cfg was piece mealed to work from a previous companies set up. In short, it is a mess and > 10 years of chaos.... 
 Current products / setup : 
 We have 30 or so cadd users. all profiles on the server. 
 MicroStation SS2 (with InRoads), Power Draft SS2, and PowerInRoads SS2. 
 All run by changing the MSLocal.cfg to point to a workspace on our "F" drive for the workspace and "P" drive for the actual cadd files 
 EVERYTHING is stored here. 
 
 What we need: 
 
 Access to standards (Cells, plot drivers, dgnlibs, macros, seed file, text rsc files, color tables) on server so we can make changes in one spot
 
 Have 3 "sets of standards" from different clients

A way to differentiate between clients for projects. I assume this can be easily done in the .pcf in the project folder. 
 
 I envision the following where A is loaded, and either B and C is depending on which "project" is selected.
 
 company wide standards 
 Client 1 standards 
 client 2 standards

What I know (and don't): 
 I know that the UPF on the server is the likely cause of speed issues. 
 I've done some research and have come up with a few paths to follow....I know number 1 is "frowned upon" based on my reading of the Bentley community forums but may be "easiest" to do. 
 
 copy entire workspace to server "F drive" again, change mslocal.cfg, add pertinent cells, dgnlibs, etc to the proper location. 
 
 With this set up, not sure how to move the UPF to the local drives 
 This doesn't "future proof" us...

Bentley LEARN. "Manage Project Configurations" - says to add a line of code in the "standards.cfg" that points to the server for a "global.cfg" and "userdata.cfg" Allows us to utilize the server for project related items.
 
 The learning center m en tions using the "global.cfg" and "userdata.cfg" files they provide as needed, and modify to fit. I cant find/download these files. 
 Not sure exactly what sort of code these need as I havnt seen the examples

Via "Bears" blogs. Add a .cfg to the "appl" directory. His blogs are very technical and almost seem "more than we need" but I am not sure. 
 
 Same as above. Im not sure

Thanks, 
 Dylan

Marc Thomas · Accepted Answer

Hi Dylan, 
 Take a look at MicroStation - QuickConfig Standard , that might be a route for you to start setting up a clean V8i Workspace. This uses an mslocal.cfg syntax that avoids any need to work in the 'appl' folder; we recommend not modifying files other than mslocal.cfg in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Bentley\MicroStation V8i (SELECTseries)\MicroStation path. 
 The techniques in Bear's blogs are equally valid when applied to CFG files in the networked Workspace's Standards folder. 
 If your current Workspace uses UPF files located on the server, we do recommend locating them locally for maximum stability and performance. If your users roam between machines Windows Roaming Profiles is one solution to keeping their preferences consistent. 
 Futureproofing... have you considered moving to CONNECT Edition? As you are reviewing your whole configuration this would be the optimum time to migrate!