Annoying problem with cached profile on student laptop

[sidewinder]

All our staff laptops work fine offline with cached roaming profiles but I have intermittant problems with student ones using mandatory profiles

Some work fine, totally as intended, others just refuse to cache the profile and so load a default on when logging on offline, not applying half the policy settings and giving kids access to virtually everything, plus no customised start menu.

Both student and staff laptops use the same computer GPO - basically just turning on offline files which is disabled on school computers. Nothing set higher up to delete cached profiles on logoff or anything, it just seems the mandatory one refuses to cache sometimes

Settings on the profile share are to 'All files/folders users open will eb available offline'
Students have read and execute access to the folder

Tried removing and re-adding the laptop to the domain, no difference.
Im sure if I re-imaged it, it would probably be sorted but its a PITA machine in that it was supplied by someone else and is totally different from any other laptop in the school...oh and the kid needs to use it every other lesson so I only get the occasional hour to look at it

Any ideas? Just to add, nothing is being stored in C:\Documents & Settings for that user, no folder at all. Anyone else logs on, it seems ok
Edit: just tried with another student account and it does the same. So it is the laptop. I think

[azrael78]

Certainly sounds peculiar.

So, if you log that laptop in as staff - it's fine.
If you log it in as any student - it's not?

Next time you get a chance, clear the event logs - reboot the laptop (while connected to the network) and then login as a student, see if anything pops up in event viewer.

Is the laptop wireless by any chance?
Does it do the same if you have it wired in or wireless?

As for more time with the laptop - try this:
(This assumes you have some kind of Virtual PC type software available)

1) Take kids laptop - clone it using whatever software you use, don't sysprep it. (I say don't sysprep, simply due to time needed to rejoin etc... particularly if the kid uses it every other lesson...)
2) Create a new VM - same OS, RAM etc as the laptop you cloned.
3) Restore the clone into the VM (but disconnect the network from the VM).
4) Login locally to the VM (keep it off the network)
5) Take the VM off the network (disjoin from domain)
6) Reboot and rename PC to something else different
7) Reboot and run newsid to generate a new SID
8) Reboot once more, connect to network and rejoin domain

Hopefully this should give you a 'test' box you can play with (back it up before you start) so you can isolate the cause without having to rely on the laptop itself.

This may not help you at all - but even if it doesn't, hopefully someone may find this idea useful.

HTH,

Az

[Galway]

Why not copy the mandatory profile to the laptop and load it locally. You could maybe script a robocopy to update it as and when its updated. That would ease the laptop profile problem.