Disappearing Folders

[secman]

Chaps,

I have a strange problem...
I have set up a number of users on a curriculum network with new IDs. They have home drives on the server with "My Documents" directed to the home drive. That all works. They have roaming profiles which also seem to work OK. The problem is that we copied folders containing teacher's files into the new home folders and now we are finding that a user logs on, the folders are there, they work on files etc and log off. When they go back on on either the same or another PC, the folder we copied on originally has lost all except the files the teacher worked on.
We have also had cases where the whole folder has disappeared.

We have backups and can restore the folders easily. But why is this happening? Any ideas.

Many thanks

[Geoff]

Do you have w2k3 Access Based Enumeration installed?

[secman]

@Geoff
No I forgot to mention that this is a W2K server with XP Pro SP1/2 and W2K Workstations, and some W98 but they don;t do roaming profiles etc so I am discounting them.

[Geoff]

Offline files turned on?

[TimH]

They have home drives on the server with "My Documents" directed to the home drive.

Using folder redirection ? (if not then how ?), then check out the settings tab in folder redirection area of GP.

Tim

[secman]

Folders are re-directed and seem to be working OK.
Switched off Synch of Offline files on the PCs in an attempt to resolve the issue. But it's still there.

What I did find late this evening was as follows:-
Created a new User ID.
Pasted a folder of files into the home folder before the user logged on for the first time. When the user logged on the files were still in the home drive /My Documents. When the user logged off, the folder disappeared to be replaced by what is normally in My Docs.
If I then copy the folder back in, the user can log on and off without the folder disappearing.
We can deal with this for the moment as we have a backup of the files but it would be nice to understand whats going on.

This is my first experience of GPO etc, so I will need clear instructions for any suggestions.

Thanks

[TimH]

Folders are re-directed and seem to be working OK.
Switched off Synch of Offline files on the PCs in an attempt to resolve the issue. But it's still there.

It sounds like you are getting a problem with redirected My Docs and docs&settings (default) My Docs.

On the settings tab of GP folder redirection make sure that "Grant the user exclusive rights..." and "Move the contents..." are turned off.

Tim

[SteveT]

Anything in a log-on/off script that could effect this?? Eg a md "n:\My Documents" without the IF NOT EXIST ?

[secman]

Thanks for the tips so far. I am only on site at this school one day a week so have just been able to test things.
The problem still exists. At first logon of a new user, the folder containing their old files is there on the Home/My Documents but disappears at the next logon. If it is put back then it stays through subsequent logons.

I have also noted that new accounts are not getting full control of their home drive. The permissions in the "advanced" tab inherited from the Home share only give the user full control of the folder and not the sub-folders. In this state, users have problems reading and writing profile files. If I add full control manually to the users share all works OK.
I think I need some more testing to establish exactly what's happening. I have to be a bit careful at the moment because I'm testing on a live environment!!!!

Any further ideas or tips would be appreciated.

[TimH]

I have also noted that new accounts are not getting full control of their home drive. The permissions in the "advanced" tab inherited from the Home share only give the user full control of the folder and not the sub-folders. In this state, users have problems reading and writing profile files.

MS KB288991 except I grant "change" rather than "full control" to creator owners.

If I add full control manually to the users share all works OK.

Part of the beauty of folder redirection is that you don't need to muck about with users' folders, the system will create them and set permissions following the above article. (Ideally with users in sub folders of a share - otherwise you have to share a folder for each user - we have \\server\2004$ etc - actually accessed via DFS as \\domain\students\2004.)