Strange problems with GPO and Mandatory Profiles.

OK, bear with me on this one, it's a little complex.

We run a mandatory profile for all our users. Together with GPO we think this gives us the best security and ability to control the students environment. We've recently been trying to create a new mandatory profile including the settings for programs like office 2007 that have just been installed etc. I did this in the same way I created the original mandatory profile that we've been using for the last year, but for some reason it just doesn't want to work properly.

To create the mandatory profile I created a new student user, and set that user to use a roaming profile on a seperate network share which was created sucessfully when the user was logged onto a workstation. I then made any necessary changes to the profile, like changeing the order of the desktop icons, and answering all the initial questions on media player, IE7 and MS office. Logged user off, and profile was sucessfully updated.

Second stage, opened up the newly created user.dat file in regedit, and set the permissions so that all students have read access to the settings, unloaded the file and exited regedit. I then renamed user.dat to user.man, and put it in place of our old mandatory policy.

I then tried logging on a student user to a workstation, and sure enough all the new settings I'd just set in the profile were there. Desktop icons were in the right order, pograms had the correct settings, great I thought until I noticed none of my VBS scripts had run at login. I Tried a couple of different student users, and they had the same problem, no scripts had been run at login.

As the only thing I had changed was the mandatory profile, I changed it back to the old one and everything worked again. I then had a further 4 attempts at creating a new profile, each one gave the same results! :evil:

Has anyone got any idea what it is I've done wrong, why using a new mandatory profile stops users running VBS scripts at logon? All the rest of the GPO settings seem to be ok, just the scripts don't run.

Any help much appreciated,

Cheers,

Mike.

permissions on vbs scripts correct? also have you definately created the right unc path to the vbs script "\\servername\vbs" ?

Hello All..

similar issue for me,

I am trying to create a new MAN roaming profile which should contain all the new stuff for SP2, Media Play 10 etc. I have logged on as my dummy user, added the details and then saved the profile to my server share (in the same shared folder as my original profile. so I know the share is valid)

I have renamed the user.dat file to user.man

logging on as a test user does indeed show that all the questions have been answered.. BUT.. for some reason my redirected desktop and start menus (done via GPO) are now nowhere to be seen so the GPO fails and Windows gives itself the locally stored profile menu and desktop..

help please..

I worked this one out, forgot about this post!

Basically I found it worked if I create the mandatory profile on a user that has no GPOs applied to it. Thinking back, I seem to remember that is the correct way to create mandatory profiles anyway, so it was me making a mistake as usual!

Cheers,

Mike.

when creating the new version profile, do I need all the folders or just the DAT file ?

Thanks
Chris

The minimum it needs is the user.man file. As far as I know if the other folders aren't in the profile, the settings from that workstations default user profile will be used. It can be useful to include them however, as some program settings are defined in some of the extra files, it does however mean the user profile takes slightly longer to download.

Mike.

I am so stupid..

you need to use the User Manager to Copy the Profile to another location and assign the rights whilst it does it..

I was "copying" the folder.

cheers...

now then, another knock on issue.

when a test user logs on using this new profile, the only thing that flags up is the setting Outlook Express Ver 6 Settings script, we don't use OE so how can I stop this happening within the profile ? does anyone know what its setting up ?

Cheers
Chris

sorry,, to confirm that

it's the "setting up personalised settings" box that I am trying to bypass..

Thanks
Chris

I'd like to add my name to that last problem!

I've got my mandatory profile just about perfect except for the annoying 'Setting up personalised settings for Outlook Express' thing.

I've even tried uninstalling Outlook Express from the machines and it still does it.

Anyone know how to get rid of it?

Thanks.

OK,,,, all sorted and here is a little bit of info.....

the problem is due to Internet Explorer 4 and above needing to save some settings within your user profiles.

Outlook Express
Media Player
Desktop Update
etc...

this info is stored in the HKLM part of the registry and when you log on a new user there is a check to compare this info with the same info in the user profile part of the user.dat (or MAN) file.... obviously this info can't be written to the profile...

having spent a long time rewording Google searches I found the following info on Microsofts site...

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q238441

I checked this on 4 computers and identified that there are around 16 STUBPATH links. I saved these as reg files and created a new reg file to delete the STUBPATH links at computer startup..

I tested this on a class of 25 computers.. which all worked fine including removing the 'Setting up personalised settings for ....." scripts that the user sees at logon...

my newly created profiles now breeze through the logon process..

here are the reg deletion details, I attach the reg file so anyone who wants it can have it ,
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{2C7339CF-2B09-4501-B3F3-F3508C9228ED}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{4b218e3e-bc98-4770-93d3-2731b9329278}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{44BBA842-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015B}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{60B49E34-C7CC-11D0-8953-00A0C90347FF}MICROS]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{73FA19D0-2D75-11D2-995D-00C04F98BBC9}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89B4C1CD-B018-4511-B0A1-5476DBF70820}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{881dd1c5-3dcf-431b-b061-f3f88e8be88a}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{2179C5D3-EBFF-11CF-B6FD-00AA00B4E220}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{5945c046-1e7d-11d1-bc44-00c04fd912be}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{7790769C-0471-11d2-AF11-00C04FA35D02}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}]
"StubPath"

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4340}]
"StubPath"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I can only assume that this script will also cover IE7 but haven't tested it as yet..

Good luck
Chris

Thanks for that. Going to give it a try today.

Tom.

Just to post here that there is a really good section on profiles (mandatory, roaming, local, etc.) in the Edugeek wiki. It's been a lifesaver for me. Link below:

http://edugeekwiki.rm-charlton.net/i...ng_up_profiles