Network Problem?

[silver]

We have several groups of computers in the school and one group has started acting weird(well,they might have been doing it already)

 

The computers appear to be logged on to the network absolutely fine, and up to now no one has complained and all has been well.

 

The printers are allocated via the login script and this works fine for members of staff everywhere else EXCEPT if they are logged on to this group, and then they can only see one of the two printers that are in the script - don't get that at all.

 

Last week I installed Testbase and it runs off a shortcut on the desktop - looking back at the server.

Again, logged on as staff everywhere else the shortcuts work, but at these machines, even though the path is the same (obviously) two out of three don't work and there is an error message about not finding them?

Other shortcuts I have installed work fine.

I have: restarted the machines, taken them off the domain and put them back on, rebooted the switch they are on, rebooted the server all to no avail.

This is my vanilla system - Server 2003 and XP

Any ideas or things I could try?

(NB this could be a Windows problem - I'm not quite sure)

[dhicks]

We have several groups of computers in the school

 

"Group" as in just a physical group of computers in a room somewhere, or are they grouped in Active Directory too? If so, is there a Group Policy Object defined for that group, and what does it do?

 

--

David Hicks

[sahmeepee]

Does the shortcut point to a mapped drive or a \\UNC\path ?

 

I would try accessing the software directly rather than via the shortcut (may not be possible if you are quite locked down). If that works, but the shortcut doesn't, try either recreating the shortcut or using filemon to diagnose the problem thoroughly.

 

Similarly for the printers - can you add them manually? Do you get an error message?

 

What language is the login script written in?

 

Does any of this stuff work as an admin, but not as a teacher? That will rule a permissions problem in or out.

[ahankiewicz]

Error on saving

 

Windows 2003 Server with XP-Pro clients, increasingly we are getting this error message (In this case it is a test account to ensure that software is working)

 

“The network folder, \\polhill\07intake\07TestUser, that contains My Document is not available. Try again later, or contact your system administrator for further assistance” (this is rather unhelpful as I am the administrator!)

 

Appears when a student tries to save their work in their own home area? The error is erratic as it is not restricted to any group of students.

 

Any have a similar error?

 

Thanks

[Michael]

Looks like a permissions issue to me. If you open up MS Word for example and navigate to File > Open, is My Documents mapping correctly? What about My Documents on the desktop? Is this pointing to the right location?

[ahankiewicz]

We use Folder Redirection in the Group Policy (see below). If the the user tries to see their home area you get the error so both local and network home area are the same(ish). I the past work could only saved on the Home area on the Server.

 

My Documents

Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone's folder to the same location)

Path: \\%HOMESHARE%%HOMEPATH%

 

Options

Grant user exclusive rights to My Documents Enabled

Move the contents of My Documents to the new location Enabled

Policy Removal Behavior Leave contents

[ahankiewicz]

Testbase

 

Have you installed the standard exampro32.ini on the machines. It should be located in the Windows folder.

 

If is not there than use then info on the CD for the network PDF file all the info

[Chris_Jones]

Do you use mandatory or roaming profiles?

 

we had a similar issue with our mandatory profiles, with the machines trying to connect to the home folder of the test user we created the profile on, rather than that of the logged on user.

 

the fix was to load the ntuser.man (or .dat for roaming) into registry editor and search for all instances of \\server\pupils\genericuser and replace with H: (mapped to users home folder)

[Michael]

the fix was to load the ntuser.man (or .dat for roaming) into registry editor and search for all instances of \\server\pupils\genericuser and replace with H: (mapped to users home folder)

 

An easier fix would be to create a test user with no mapped home drive.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

I use:

 

Basic (Redirect everyone's folder to the same location)

Redirect to the user's home directory

 

Settings

Grant user exclusive rights to My Documents Unticked

Move the contents of My Documents to the new location Unticked

Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed Selected

 

I would say you definitely need to untick Grant user exclusive rights to My Documents as this can create problems.

[ahankiewicz]

We use mandatory profiles for students and teachers but with less restrictions.

 

I am a bear with no brain who to achieve "the fix was to load the ntuser.man (or .dat for roaming) into registry editor and search for all instances of \\server\pupils\genericuser and replace with H: (mapped to users home folder)"

 

Andrew

[ahankiewicz]

Thanks for the info - I tried do as you said but I get the following error message

 

"Cannot import D:\network Shares\profiles\pupil\pupil.pdm\ntuser.man. The specified file is not a registry script.

 

You can only import binary registry files from within the registry editor"

 

Help!

 

Andrew

[Chris_Jones]

rename it from .man to .dat

 

then open it up in registry editor, make the changes and save and change the name back to .man