Remote Folders Not Refreshing - DFS?

[Duke]

Hi all,

 

I've had a look around and can't find any other threads on this issue, so I'm hoping someone might be able to help!

 

Summary: We have roaming profiles and userspaces for our staff and students, and until recently the userspaces were mapped to \\server\username$ in Active Directory with no problems. We recently bought a SAN to consolidate our storage and we put our new Year 7 intake on it, with a \\san\yeargroup share which contained their userspace folders. Rather than mapping them directly I used DFS to make any future data migrations much easier and put them in Active Directory as \\domain.local\common\yeargroup\username.

 

This has worked in principal fine and they can read/write files okay so I know it works as far as file redirection and the SAN goes, but today I ran into a strange problem where Windows Explorer isn't updating the view of their documents automatically, so any files or folders they create don't appear until they refresh the window by pressing F5.

 

This KB Article explains it: File list in the Windows Explorer folder is not refreshed after you create, move, or delete files

 

However, has anyone one else run into this, as when I tried to replicate the issue on a PC that was having problems I couldn't, thus making the MS reg fix impossible to test. I'd like to know whether it actually works before I deploy it as only half a room has been affected so far.

 

Many thanks in advance,

Chris

[Silvor]

We have the same problem. I've not applied any fix yet.

All our users connect to \\server01\username$ and it works.

 

Last time we had this problem we disabled DFS in services. It worked I believe. I'm about to check the services aren't running again and then if they are, disable them to see if that works.

 

Edit: The service was running on two servers. Disabled now. Will await to see if it fixes the problem.

[Duke]

Thanks for the reply, let me know how it goes! At present I'm going for the MS registry fix to see if that makes any difference but my scripts aren't running currently for some reason!

 

Registry file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSimpleNetIDList"=dword:00000001

 

Batch file to add it:

@echo off
regedit /s "\\path\to\regfile.reg"

 

Batch file to remove it in case it breaks something:

@echo off
reg delete "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" /v NoSimpleNetIDList /f

 

However, I've added this as a GPO startup script and it's still not applying to my test PC, very annoying...

 

Chris

[kmount]

Hi Chris,

 

Looking at that it's changing HKCU, try it as a login script and see if it wants to play then.

 

Cheers,

 

Kim.

[Duke]

Er, whoops.

 

Thanks Kim, I think I've been staring at the screen too long and it's stopped making sense! Funnily enough that fixed it, I'll now test it on the Year 7 intake and keep my fingers crossed.

 

Cheers,

Chris

[kmount]

Know that feeling Second pair of eyes always helps.

[Duke]

Getting to the point where it's kind of funny now - Applying that GPO means user logons just hang after they have put in their username and password. It lets them login eventually but takes absolutely ages with nothing displayed on the screen. Take the GPO off that OU and logins work fine again.

 

Users have permissions on the script directory, and if a make a shortcut to it for one of them they can see and access the files fine. However, the command prompt and regedit are disabled for students for obvious reasons. I was under the impression I could still use them in a logon script but perhaps not? Does this leave me with having to try to remember how to write VBS scripts...?

 

Chris

[kmount]

Hi Chris,

 

You can add the particular batchfiles/reghacks / script path into a software exceptions policy under a GPO and this would circumvent the normal restrictions on the command prompt/registry editor during login.

 

If that doesn't help, might be worth enabling the policy to make logon scripts visible incase it's doing something daft and eventually timing out.

[Duke]

I've tried to get around it with a bit of VBScript for now, and I know VBScript will run in principal as we already use them elsewhere for other logon scripts.

 

VBScript to add reg key:

Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001

strComputer = "."

Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _ 
   strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

strKeyPath = "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer"
strValueName = "NoSimpleNetIDList"
dwValue = 1

oReg.SetDWORDValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,dwValue

 

Now in principal this works, in that if I run it myself it will add the key, and I also have another script that will remove it. If I apply it to a student as a GPO it doesn't hang the logon, and I can run it manually as a student with no errors too (not that there's any error handling in there). However, if I try to monitor HKCU remotely (which is difficult due to the way the remote registry works) I can't actually see the key being added, which sucks. I can't view it locally as a student because they can't run regedit.

 

I'm going to try it as a GPO on myself to see if the GPO is at least working correctly...

 

EDIT: GPO definitely works for me but definitely doesn't work for a student either run as a logon script or run manually. I made another VBS to read the registry as a user and even after manually running the script to add the key it doesn't appear in the registry. I would have thought users must have the ability to edit HKCU in order for their settings/preferences to be stored...

 

Here's the VBScript code to check whether the key exists:

Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
Const REG_SZ = 1
Const REG_EXPAND_SZ = 2
Const REG_BINARY = 3
Const REG_DWORD = 4
Const REG_MULTI_SZ = 7

strComputer = "."
strCorrectKey = "NoSimpleNetIDList"
strDoesExist = "False"

Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _ 
   strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

strKeyPath = "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer"

oReg.EnumValues HKEY_CURRENT_USER, strKeyPath, _
   arrValueNames, arrValueTypes

For i=0 To UBound(arrValueNames)
   If arrValueNames(i) = strCorrectKey Then
strDoesExist = "True"
   End If 
Next

   If strDoesExist = "True" Then
Wscript.Echo "NoSimpleNetIDList Exists!"
   Else
Wscript.Echo "Key Does Not Exist!"
   End If

 

Cheers,

Chris

Edited September 8, 2009 by Duke

[Silvor]

Hey,

 

I've not had chance to see if the disabled service has taken affect and worked yet, but I'll ask the ICT teachers to monitor it today.

 

I hope we can both get this fixed! Thanks for your updates and such; they may come in very useful.

[Duke]

UPDATE

 

Not good news unfortunately. After the VBScript didn't work someone suggested I make an EXE from Visual Studio that did the same thing. I tried to remember how to do Visual Basic and got a working EXE, but again this worked for me and not for a student. Someone then pointed out to me that students won't ever be able to edit Policies\Explorer because otherwise they'd be able to change their GPO settings. The solution was to put it in just Explorer, and after this the script worked, but I still had the Explorer issue. I then manually remotely made the key in Policies\Explorer but that didn't fix the problem either.

 

I was assuming the fix would take effect immediately (was running it manually while logged on), but I've now run it as a logon script too and it makes no difference (only able to test Explorer as a GPO, not Policies\Explorer as that still doesn't work as a script).

 

Here's the other KB that would explain our issue perfectly: If you delete or add folders in a network-shared folder, Windows Explorer does not show the change in Windows XP

 

We've gone from \\server\username$ (server\share) to \\san\year\username (san\share\folder) which is what the KB outlines, but shell32.dll on a 'broken' PC (I currently have a reliable test case) is already a later version than the one in the KB.

 

UPDATE 2: Just tested the user account on my PC and it works absolutely fine, folders appear immediately in Explorer. I've run and MD5sum on shell32.dll on my PC and the broken PC and they're identical, which would suggest it's not a problem with that dll. If the registry doesn't fix it and the dll doesn't fix it...

 

Any suggestions...?

 

Chris

Edited September 9, 2009 by Duke

[Duke]

Hey,

 

I've not had chance to see if the disabled service has taken affect and worked yet, but I'll ask the ICT teachers to monitor it today.

 

I hope we can both get this fixed! Thanks for your updates and such; they may come in very useful.

 

Mike - The only problem is that we need DFS, so I can't disable it on any servers, and also these file shares are on a Sun SAN which doesn't have any services anyway (at least not like a Windows box does). Hope your fix works for you because I'm a bit stumped!

 

Chris

[Duke]

The plot thickens!

 

In addition to having GPO folder redirection that points My Documents to %homeshare%\My Documents, AD also maps the DFS path to the U: drive.

 

I've now found that if a user opens My Documents they have the explorer refresh issue. However, if they go to My Computer > U: > My Documents and make a folder in there then it works properly and the folder appears immediately!

 

Could this be more of a folder redirection issue than a DFS or network folder issue? Anyone able to shed any more light on it?

 

Back to Google...

 

Chris