Windows 7 fails at first hurdle!

[GoldenWonder]

Ok, so I gave in and decided to setup W7 Pro in our 2003 domain to see what it would be like.

 

Not a good start really, several flaws have come to light:

 

1) Start Menu redirection doesn't work - users end up with a nearly empty menu. Desktop redirection does work bizarrely.

2) Local profiles can't be deleted with a script (as we do now) so every PC will eventually have 1800 profiles on it!

3) You can't remove the profile/library icon from the desktop via group policy

4) You can't change the default desktop (i.e the login screen) using scripts like I do with XP

5) No Active desktop. I know this disappeared in Vista but it has some uses here

 

Not the best start - and I thought W7 was a step forward from Vista, as I seem to remember problem 1) in Vista when I tested that!

[featured_spectre]

If you try with Server 2008 R2 you will find that you will have vastly different results!

[GoldenWonder]

But W7 should work with 2003 as the redirection policies are the same? Group Policy settings should work as long as you maintain the W7 ones from a W7 PC.

 

Moving to 2008 is an expensive option at the minute as we'd have to buy all new CALs as well.

[DMcCoy]

But W7 should work with 2003 as the redirection policies are the same? Group Policy settings should work as long as you maintain the W7 ones from a W7 PC.

 

Moving to 2008 is an expensive option at the minute as we'd have to buy all new CALs as well.

 

They are different, 2008 has a compatibility option to enable folder redirection policies to work with XP as well as Vista/7. There are now around 15 folders to redirect if you want to do everything.

[GoldenWonder]

So folder direction in W7 is designed NOT to work in 2003 domains? Thats not the impression MS give - althought they offer very little info on this to start with.

[mb2k01]

Although i'm not rolling out to the network yet, I have been using Win 7 on my office station since the last Beta. Now using 7pro and our 2003 redirection policies seem to work fine.

I've tested on various user types and each get desktop and start menu fine.

 

The only thing I did find was that the wallpaper didn't get applied.

 

I'm not sure this helps you - maybe we're unique / lucky, or maybe its worth checking permissions on the redirection shares / fine tune policies etc?

 

I would still listen to the above advice though - 2008 is a much more suitable option for a full rollout.

[GoldenWonder]

Oh I definitely agree about rolling out 2008 (budget permitting!) but its likely we'll have W7 pcs in the 2003 domain before 2008 is rolled out.

 

Daft thing is the desktops are redirecting. The event viewer says that all of the folders have been successfully redirect. But the start menu remains practically empty (some local programs only)

 

EDIT: Oh dear. Now my W7 test PC won't boot. Stuck at 'Please Wait' on boot. Its not going well is it! Did MS actually change Vista or is W7 purely a rebranding exercise!

Edited December 15, 2009 by GoldenWonder

[AngryTechnician]

FYI, Vista and 7 keeps track of #3 on their own. I can't find a reference with the exact number but it will only keep the last 50 or so.

[contink]

Given that Server 2008 R2 is designed specifically to support Win7 natively and Win7 came out significantly after 2003 it's a little unfair to expect complete support although granted the marketing bods need sitting on.

 

Even if budgetary constraints stop you from shoving 2008 out across the whole thing it would seem relatively cost effective to roll out just one 2008 DC with no other roles so you can at least benefit from the new Schema which would include all the Win7 stuff.. It's not perfect but I'd imagine it would save significant time... Anyone able to confirm?

[GoldenWonder]

I'm not expecting to have the full Windows 7 experience without 2008, but this is the basics of a Windows network - folder redirection is a simple policy that should work on Win7.

 

A bit of research shows that you either a) get Win7 working fine in 2003 domain or b) get such variable results you either give up or migrate to 2008 server

 

Alas I'm in b)

[MrEprise]

I found that in order for folder redirections to work in a Windows 7/WS2003 setup, for each redirected folder, the ownership is required to be set to the user whose folders belong to (if this makes sense.)

 

If the ownership is set to an administrator account (or rather any other account) then 7 will fail to redirect the folders. Apparently this has something to do with the way 7 handles folder permissions as opposed to the way XP does.

[GoldenWonder]

Do you mean the Server side users folder has to have the user as the owner?

 

Thats going to be a pain to configure as we have 2000 students, and I guess the owner of their folder is still set to Administrator

[contink]

I found that in order for folder redirections to work in a Windows 7/WS2003 setup, for each redirected folder, the ownership is required to be set to the user whose folders belong to (if this makes sense.)

 

If the ownership is set to an administrator account (or rather any other account) then 7 will fail to redirect the folders. Apparently this has something to do with the way 7 handles folder permissions as opposed to the way XP does.

 

Sounds like a bit of XCACLS coding required...

 

This should be quite useful (about 2/3rds of the way down)

By using the following one-liner, I was able to:

Successfully take ownership (/o "HOST-OR-DOMAIN\USER-OR-GROUP") 
Add ACL entries having Full permissions, without mangling existing ACL entries (/g "HOST-OR-DOMAIN\USER-OR-GROUP", and /e) 
Performing the above actions to a folder as well as all of its subfolders and files (/f /s /t)
xcacls.vbs FILE /f /s /t /e /g "HOST-OR-DOMAIN\USER-OR-GROUP":f /o "HOST-OR-DOMAIN\USER-OR-GROUP" 

 

Setting ownershp and permissions from the command line | AnalogDuck.com

[GoldenWonder]

Hmm. I can see the logic inn the Ownership problem for the users personal folders failing to redirect, but what is failing to redirect is the Start Menu (which is redirected to different paths depending on group membership/yeargroup)

 

Oddly this is exactly the same for the Desktop redirection, and thats working OK.

[MrEprise]

Do you mean the Server side users folder has to have the user as the owner?

 

Thats going to be a pain to configure as we have 2000 students, and I guess the owner of their folder is still set to Administrator

 

Yes.

 

I've only done this to my own account so doing it to 2000 students (or roughly 1400 in our case which is still too many) sounds like too much hard work.

 

Unfortunately I can't comment on start menus as we haven't tested it that far ahead yet, although our students use locally stored start menus pulled down via robocopy at present. I'd like to go back to redirected start menus but we previously found that windows would freeze when 100s of kids opened their start menus to open programs, logoff, etc...

Edited December 15, 2009 by MrEprise

[GoldenWonder]

Well W7 thinks start menu redirection is working - the event viewer shows:

 

"Successfully applied policy and redirected folder "Programs" to "\\server1\desktops\staff\start menu\Programs".

Redirection options=0x9008"

 

 

However the use gets neither the start menu shown above, nor the local default user version either.

[ronnoco]

Hi,

 

I'm having the exact same problem as you and I really think it relates to the profile being used.

 

If I log on as a student and let it create a new profile, deskstop and start menu redirection doesn't work. If I create a local user on the machine (thus creating a profile) then log on as Admin and copy that profile to the profiles directory on the server, assign the user that profile...start menu redirection works (but not desktop).

 

According to Microsoft, this is the only way to customize a user profile in Windows 7.

 

How to customize default user profiles in Windows 7

 

I haven't managed to do it this way and I think most people haven't but I wonder if this is causing the problems.

 

For the record to get Windows 7.0 working (or should I say try!) we upgraded 1 X 2003 server to 2008 Enterprise. Did all the forest prep, schema update, etc and have all of the options in Folder Redirection. I've even compared settings with people who have it working perfectly but no joy for us making me think it is profile related. We're also getting permission errors as soon as we launch Word (cannot save to global template, etc) even for me (Domain Admin) with Admin rights tot he computer?

 

If you get it resolved, please let me know what you did and vice versa.

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[GoldenWonder]

I seem to have found a solution to this - for the start menu problem anyway.

 

In our user policies the policy setting:

 

'Remove Users folders from the Start Menu'

 

is set to Enabled for our XP clients. Changing this to Disabled makes it work in Windows 7

 

I haven't tested the impact of this on XP, as I changed a test Group Policy which only impacts the Windows 7 test PCs

 

Now, onto the rest of the problems!