Windows 7 Gotchas/Tips/FYI

[FragglePete]

Stop Them Chaning Timezones

Caught me out this did, notice a few of our Computers had odd time stamps on some of the logs we keep.

Group Policy > Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Local Polices/User Rights Assignment

Set a user group permission that can change timezone on the 'Change the time zone' setting. (ie Administrators Only).

Utility built into Windows 7 called tzutil.exe that allows you to set a timezone with a script if required.

Pete

[Mr.Ben]

You encounter a long logon time (Hanging at 'Applying Folder Redirection Policy') after you enable the "Do not automatically make redirected folders available offline" Group Policy setting in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 (including SP1)


This occurs when:

You deploy the 'Do not automatically make redirected folders available offline Group Policy' setting in a network environment.

You redirect multiple folders on a client computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 to a file server.

There is a hotfix for this problem that solved the problem for me:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2525332

[FragglePete]

When computer is locked, you have no idea who is logged in and locked the computer.

If you take a look in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System there is a key called 'dontdisplaylockeduserid' which is set to '3' be default.

Changing this to 2 will show the Display Name of the user currently logged in.
Changing this to 1 will show the Logon Name and Display Name of tje current user who is logged in.

The default value of '3' will not show who is logged in.

Pete

[googlemad]

[SIZE="4"][U][B]
When viewing redirected folders share you may see many "My Documents"
When Windows sets up a new redirected My Documents it creates a hidden desktop.ini file which means that when you browse the share/location from Windows you may see a huge amount of folders called "My Documents"/"Documents" rather then the folder name it should be (e.g. \\server\share\username as the path could look like \\server\share\documents)
The folders are correctly named but when Windows sees the existance of the hidden desktop.ini in each directory it displays the folder as "My Documents"/"Documents" rather then the real folder name. This can happen with any special folder I believe such as Favourites.

The solution:
Remove the desktop.ini file in each my docs redirected folder. This can be done with script or using Group Policy Preferences. You can also redirect to a sub folder which hides the issue (e.g. redirect to \\server\share\username\documents\)
[/code]

Could you provide a little bit of guidance doing this using GPP? Not really sure where it needs to go e.g. Computer / User configuration and how high up the tree it needs to be...

Our home dirs are \\fileserver\staff$\%username%

Thanks

[Shuriken1]

Could you provide a little bit of guidance doing this using GPP? Not really sure where it needs to go e.g. Computer / User configuration and how high up the tree it needs to be...

Our home dirs are \\fileserver\staff$\%username%

Thanks

Hi Googlemad,

Set up a Group Policy object and go into User Configuration > Preferences >Windows Settings > Files. In there, add a new File rule by right-clicking on the empty list and selecting New > File. Choose action Delete. Then in the Delete files field, put (in your case) '\\fileserver\staff$\%username%\desktop.ini'.

You might need to go through and delete the files once but once that's enforced, it should stop the file being created and thus, fix the problem.

Hope that help,

Shuriken1.

[Finch7]

Hi Googlemad,

Set up a Group Policy object and go into User Configuration > Preferences >Windows Settings > Files. In there, add a new File rule by right-clicking on the empty list and selecting New > File. Choose action Delete. Then in the Delete files field, put (in your case) '\\fileserver\staff$\%username%\desktop.ini'.

You might need to go through and delete the files once but once that's enforced, it should stop the file being created and thus, fix the problem.

Hope that help,

Shuriken1.

Alternatively, if you use multiple folders for the user areas (i.e. staff, 07, 08, 09 ect...) I did exactly the same as above but deleted H:\desktop.ini (all home drives are H:\ here) and make sure to tick the common option "run in logged on users security context" (user policy)

[Chuckster]

A great important tip...

You experience the following 2 Event IDs

Event ID 6005
The winlogon notification subscriber <GPClient> is taking long time to handle the notification event (CreateSession).

Followed later with the Event ID 6006
The winlogon notification subscriber <GPClient> took xxx second(s) to handle the notification event (CreateSession).

This occurs if you're stuck at the Applying Computer Settings



Simply disabling (or setting it to Not Configured) "Run logon scripts synchronously” cures the problem.

This is found under Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Scripts

[Chuckster]

You experience the following 2 Event IDs

Event ID 6005
The winlogon notification subscriber <GPClient> is taking long time to handle the notification event (CreateSession).

Followed later with the Event ID 6006
The winlogon notification subscriber <GPClient> took xxx second(s) to handle the notification event (CreateSession).

This occurs if you're stuck at the Applying Computer Settings screen prior to logging on.


Simply disabling (or setting it to Not Configured) "Run logon scripts synchronously” cures the problem.

This is found under Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Scripts