A few lurking profile issues

This one has been hanging around. It's more irratating then anything...but now the network has "bedded in" i can start looking at sorting them.

We have roaming profiles in use, server 2003, win xp workstations, We use BGInfo for wallpapers.


1: I've noticed that sometimes when a member of staff has logged on, and have used some software when they minimise the program the desktop has gone from the staff green background, to a basic blue one. Which doesnt help cus then it just looks like student account.

2: I have seen members of staff log straight onto the blue background like their profile hasnt loaded and this stops them being able to use things certain things like drivers for the Whiteboard. Staff dont swap machines a lot here so they are usually one the same one.

3: Sometimes when logging on the machine just hangs on a blue screen and the only way out is to reboot the machine.

Like i said, just PITA things which are hard to explain to teachers and i dont think they should have to be logging off and on again to load a profile properly.

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1: I've noticed that sometimes when a member of staff has logged on, and have used some software when they minimise the program the desktop has gone from the staff green background, to a basic blue one. Which doesnt help cus then it just looks like student account.

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I have seen this happen from time to time but not as often as you describe. I've put it down to explorer.exe refreshing which can inadvertently change the wallpaper.

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2: I have seen members of staff log straight onto the blue background like their profile hasnt loaded and this stops them being able to use things certain things like drivers for the Whiteboard. Staff dont swap machines a lot here so they are usually one the same one.

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If the roaming profile isn't found then the default behaviour is to use a cached profile. This shouldn't in theory stop the whiteboard working however as the Smart or Promethean software and driver would be installed locally on each machine. Do users experience this problem on a wired or wireless network out of curiosity?

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3: Sometimes when logging on the machine just hangs on a blue screen and the only way out is to reboot the machine.

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When this happens have you tried pressing ctrl+alt+del. Again it sounds like explorer.exe possibly has crashed. For all three instances I would recommend you look at the event logs on the affected machines. You can do this remotely on the server using MMC so you don't need to disturb teachers.

hmmm, I have 2 words.......Policy Central.

Have they rolled out the update yet?

These are wired machines im referring to.

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Have they rolled out the update yet?

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Yep, we've got it direct from them, not sure if various LA's have released it though.

Hmm, will check but according to the PCE thread its been done. If its not PCE whats crashing explorer?

To my knowledge PCE was conflicting with Internet Explorer and not/never the Explorer process which are two different things. If you've explored all other possibilities, give Link2ICT a call and see what they think or any advice they can offer.

I can imagine though that with the Explorer process playing up that would/could in theory affect the way profiles are processed.

Hmm, ok. Any ideas to fix this?

Have your tried clearing the PC of cached profiles and removing (rename is usually better just in case you need to roll-back) the offending roaming profile?

You could uninstall Policy Central and see how things go, that'd be fairly definitive proof of Policy Central's guilt / innocence.

I have started doing this. I will continue and see how we get on!