Possible profile issue?

[witch]

Got a strange problem here that has lifted its head over the past week or so. Suddenly, when everyone logs on, it is as if their profile has been wiped - any office settings come up as if it is the first time - asking you if you want to use recommended settings. My boss uses outlook and it has lost all his emails too. Also, any other settings you have put on your profile have vanished such as 'classic view' etc.
The learning platform is also affected - when a person logs on for the first time it asks for some info, and now it is doing it every single time.
As a test, I deleted a couple of user profiles off both the server and the local machine but the issue persisted.
Nothing has changed on the server in recent weeks.
Has anyone seen this before?
Oh, and it doesnt affect the administrators account

[DEvans]

I assume you are using Roaming profiles.

Do you have any redirections in place? If you do, are your group policies applying to the machines when they login? If it doesn't apply the policies, it won't apply the redirection, no redirection and it will create a new profile on the client machine.

What operating system are your clients running?

[witch]

Yes, roaming profiles, Windows 7, all policies being applied as per usual.

[DEvans]

I had a similar issue to this a long while back. It was caused by a hotfix for Internet Explorer 9.

Have any windows updates been authorised during the time this problem occured? Would explain why some machines weren't affected then some began to be, then eventually the majority.

Also are all the normal processes happening, like mapped drives, printer allocation etc?

[p3dr0]

try removing registry key from affected machine the key should have .bak on the end and its located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. That usually works for us. there is also a full thread about it somewhere on the forum i just cant find it

[witch]

I was hoping that I didnt have to go in the registry as it is on all machines in the school - that is about 120. Unless there is a way to do it to all at once?
I think an update may well be to blame and I will look into it

[Oaktech]

can you make a text document with the apropriate changes call it a .reg file, write a little script to run it and push it out as a startup script? Lotttts of help on google for doing that!

[DEvans]

Or Group Policy preferences. Its all windows 7 with (i assume) a 2008 R2 Server. Saves you messing with scripts then. I found it to be quite reliable and quicker to do it. Can apply it to all sorts of scenarios, like certain security groups, run as administrator if it needs to be done on a user login etc..

Group Policy Management Console

User or Computer Settings --> Preferences --> Two folders in there containing tools to everything you ever need. Inc. registry.

[Michael]

Got a strange problem here that has lifted its head over the past week or so. Suddenly, when everyone logs on, it is as if their profile has been wiped - any office settings come up as if it is the first time - asking you if you want to use recommended settings. My boss uses outlook and it has lost all his emails too. Also, any other settings you have put on your profile have vanished such as 'classic view' etc.
The learning platform is also affected - when a person logs on for the first time it asks for some info, and now it is doing it every single time.
As a test, I deleted a couple of user profiles off both the server and the local machine but the issue persisted.
Nothing has changed on the server in recent weeks.
Has anyone seen this before?
Oh, and it doesnt affect the administrators account

It sounds to me users are probably being logged on with a temp profile and settings are lost when they logoff.

As for Outlook, I believe if you re-direct Documents to say H:\ the default PST file path would be H:\Outlook

[witch]

It sounds to me users are probably being logged on with a temp profile and settings are lost when they logoff.

As for Outlook, I believe if you re-direct Documents to say H:\ the default PST file path would be H:\Outlook

But if it is a temporary profile it usually tells you- but no message this time. The email issue comes and goes but he never has any of his settings. And sometimes you can save a word doc to your user area and sometimes you cant..

[Michael]

But if it is a temporary profile it usually tells you- but no message this time. The email issue comes and goes but he never has any of his settings. And sometimes you can save a word doc to your user area and sometimes you cant..

A temporary profile message normally appears, unless you've hidden all Taskbar icons then no bubble notifications will show.

To me it sounds like a combination of problems. If you can only sometimes connect to a user's home directory, it would indicate either a server issue or possibly a network issue. I'd recommend you give the switches a reboot at the start or end of the day first.

If there's no improvement, start looking at the server and event logs on the workstations. It may give you a clue.

[Trillion11]

I've had a similar problem to this, when the user logged on it was creating a local user profile. The only resolution we found was to back-up the user's data server side and delete the local and server side profile as well as the user account in active directory and re-create the user account and profile folders. Luckily this only happened to two users for us.

The fact that its happening for numerous users in your case would suggest an update gone wrong . Have you tried logging in as an effected user on a freshly image machine minus most recent update and software patches?

-Matt

[witch]

I've had a similar problem to this, when the user logged on it was creating a local user profile. The only resolution we found was to back-up the user's data server side and delete the local and server side profile as well as the user account in active directory and re-create the user account and profile folders. Luckily this only happened to two users for us.

The fact that its happening for numerous users in your case would suggest an update gone wrong . Have you tried logging in as an effected user on a freshly image machine minus most recent update and software patches?

-Matt

Thanks, that sounds like a good idea - will do that Monday
Michael - we do get 'temporary profile' messages - it definitely isnt switched off
will reboot switches as well

[psydii]

I had a similar issue to this a long while back. It was caused by a hotfix for Internet Explorer 9.

Any recollection of which one?

[DEvans]

I'm at the school tomorrow, I most likely have it written down in documentation somewhere. I'll update this post when I know.