Not picking up group policies or profiles??

[Andie]

I have one client computer that is running slow across the network, taking an age to login. Then, when logged in, it picks up some elements such as printers from the login script and mapped drives and shared desktop shortcuts, but isn't suppressing common elements. In other words, despite having mandatory profiles set up, the desktop is littered with icons and the Start menu has extra items on it. Other computers in the same classroom and of the same make and model are behaving fine.

 

I have checked in AD that this computer is in the correct OU.

 

Am I looking at a faulty network connection here??? Or have I overlooked something very basic??

Edited March 5, 2008 by Andie
Badly worded!!

[plexer]

have you run gpupdate /force just to make sure it has picked up all the correct up to dat gpo settings?

 

Ben

[cromertech]

I removed my mandatory profile for the students as it was causing me no end of problems. It seemed that if the network connection was anything less than perfect it would load a default profile anyway.

My solution was to use just group policy to get the machine looking how I wanted it. This did mean that I could redirect to a common start menu and set wallpaper (an html page with active links) so that everybody saw the same thing.

To solve problems with windows caching the profiles and not refreshing gpo information on logon, I have now also set delprof.exe (available from ms website as part of resource tools) to delete the user profile when the user logs off.

All this basically gives me is the equivalent of a brand new profile each time the user logs in (ideal for the students who don't need to customise any aspects of their desktop)

[Andie]

have you run gpupdate /force just to make sure it has picked up all the correct up to dat gpo settings?

 

Ben

 

I suspect this problem has existed a long time, but I have just gone to run gpupdate and got this error message:

 

Cannot find file gpupdate (or one of its components). make sure the path and filename are correct and that the required libraries are available.

 

So something isn't right! I have 16 other machines of same type, but none of these have same problem. Looks like i'm missing a vital networking component. Which one and how do I sort it out, please?? (Windows 2000 machine, Windows 2003 server).

[plexer]

Sorry for windows 2000 it is:

 

secedit /refreshpolicy user_policy

secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy

 

No gpupdate on those.

 

Ben

[Andie]

Sorry for windows 2000 it is:

 

secedit /refreshpolicy user_policy

secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy

 

No gpupdate on those.

 

Ben

 

Thanks. I've tried this, but nothing has changed. And I am wrong about this being on only one computer.

 

There are three desktops in this classroom, and the cabling for the network is different in this room to the rest of the classrooms (long story).

 

The oldest desktop of the three is behaving as it should. The two newer ones (same make and model) are not picking up policies/profiles. (One of these was away getting a new power supply so I couldn't test it at the time of first posting). Both of these are taking an age to boot and then log in. Once logged in they are picking up printers, desktop icons and menu items but are not suppressing other icons and menu items - so the desktop is littered with extra icons. All three are Win2000 Prof.

 

I have gone to another identical make and model in another classroom and that is behaving properly.

 

Annoyingly, I think this has been going on for ages, but no one thought to report it. I only picked it up when someone reported a different fault on one of the machines.

 

Oh, and I have tried removing the computer from the network and then adding it back in, and that hasn't worked either.

Edited March 4, 2008 by Andie
Added some extra info.

[Andie]

I've done a few screenshots of Start menu, desktop and LAN settings to try and determine what if all policies are not being applied, or just some. However, because I'm dealing with Win2000 it may be difficult to tell. In the Start menu, I do have Logoff added, but maybe that would be there in Win2000. But it isn't suppressing things like the Search and Help menus. It hasn't picked up the changes to the LAN settings either, although it must at some point have picked up an earlier change.

 

I think I am back to thinking that I have a couple of dodgy network connections...??

[elsiegee40]

Is this one user? It sounds like the Profile has become corrupt.

 

Inwhich case, delete it from the local machines and the server and then let a new one be created.

[Andie]

Is this one user? It sounds like the Profile has become corrupt.

 

Inwhich case, delete it from the local machines and the server and then let a new one be created.

 

No, it is all pupil users at least. I have checked for policies that may have been left on the local machines, but there aren't any that would be causing problems.

 

I am currently gathering some advice from a few similar threads that I have found that may give me some more diagnostic info. As the machines are in a classroom, access is a bit restricted (junior school) so I have to dash in and try stuff in breaks. I do have reason to suspect the network connections though due to other problems we had earlier on.

[Andie]

Ok. I have done a bit of digging on other threads and tried a few things. Some won't work - possibly because they are XP commends and my two problem machines are Win2000. Results as follows:

 

1. Teacher users logging on are pulling across the GPs.

2. Administrator users are also pulling across the GPs.

3. Pupil users are not getting the GPs.

4. gpresult for pupil users confirms the presence of the domain, but all policies listed are local.

5. The extra desktop icons and start menu items are coming from All Users.

6. The IP addresses of the two rogue machines are odd - three digits at the end rather than two, and way out of range.

7. The host names for these two machines are being reported as just the machine name, whereas all other machines (inc identical makes and models) are reported as machinename.domainname.internal

8. I have a program on the server called Look@LAN, installed by the IT provider. I can get whizzy graphics up with info about the network, but haven't much idea what it is telling me or how to use it for further diagnostics.

9. I have tried pinging one machine and that is fine. I have also tried

ping -a IPaddress

and that worked too.

10. I have tried another working network port.

11. I have tried the equivalent of gpupdate.

12. I have tried removing a machine from domain and then joining again.

13. I have deleted user profiles from the machines, but not All Users (which should be suppressed by GP anyway).

 

Can I run netdiag on the server and would that help??

 

Any ideas?? I am rapidly getting out of my depth here...

[Andie]

I downloaded netdiag to a network share, then installed it on the problem machines from there.

 

The download link for netdiag is:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1EA70814-7E6C-46E5-8C8C-3C439A732E9F&displaylang=en

 

Instructions are here:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321708

 

I found that the download installed into C:\Program Files\Resource Kit, so that when I went to command prompt, I then had to type (from C:>) cd \program files\resource kit ENTER netdiag ENTER

 

I transferred to another thread to ask some questions about the results from netdiag here (basically the DNS test failed):

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=16776

 

The problem is now fixed. The machines had fixed IP addresses, but I have kept this arrangement for now. They had also been set somehow to use our old DNS server, so I changed this (Start>Settings>Network and Dialup Connections, right click the network connection and choose properties, click on TCP/IP and click on Properties). Once that was done, I manually created the DNS A and PTR records in DNS on the server, rebooted the machines and they are now booting quickly, logging on quickly and having the correct policies applied.