Windows 7 disconned mapped drives and printer connections

[Psymon]

Opened a thread on Technet forums -

 

Group policy printers dissapearing from client machines intermittently

 

MS informed me to test with Vista, so i am imaging 2 machines now to attempt to re-create the error.

 

Si

[Psymon]

Having checked the event logs on the computers that are having this problem i found the following event that is occuring on all machines when the printers are lost.

 

 
The user 'BURSARY-ColourCopier' preference item in the 'User Policy - Base {E1631A9F-2A31-461C-9FDF-BCD42202FBA4}' Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x8007000a The environment is incorrect.' This error was suppressed.

The user 'ACCOUNTS-Laser' preference item in the 'User Policy - Base {E1631A9F-2A31-461C-9FDF-BCD42202FBA4}' Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x8007000a The environment is incorrect.' This error was suppressed.

 

Anyone else got a similar error?

 

Si

[Psymon]

The resolution for Printers was the following registry entry (which prevents printers being re-installed with GP refreshes).

 

"Do not apply during periodic background processing" needs to be enabled in the following policy.

[COMPUTER POLICY\ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES\SYSTEM\GROUP POLICY\Printers preference extension policy processing]

 

Hope this helps someone out.

Si

[Psymon]

There is also

 

"Do not apply during periodic background processing" needs to be enabled in the following policy.

[COMPUTER POLICY\ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES\SYSTEM\GROUP POLICY\Network Shares preference extension policy processing]

 

 

This should deal with the mapped drives.

Si

[burgemaster]

Hmmmm,

 

I dont have these in my "\system\Group Policy" folder.... Im editing GPs with a win 7 SP1 with RSAT installed.

Our domain controllers are still Server 2003, this shouldnt be a problem should it?

 

Thanks in advance

[Psymon]

Do you have a central ADMX store? Usually in - \\DOMAINNAME\SYSVOL\DOMAINNAME\Policies\PolicyDefinitions

 

You may have to copy over updated ADMX templates.

 

Si

[burgemaster]

Thanks for the reply,

In our "Policies" folder we have folders for each GP with a long name, e.g. {2BDB3A41-FEC3-4374-8122-49D1A37887C3}. But no folder within called "PolicyDefinitions"

Is this something that I was supposed to have setup?

 

Thanks again

[denon101]

Yes, go into the windows folder on your win 7 machine with RSAT. Copy the policy definitions folder over to the domain\sysvol\domain\policies folder. This will be your central ADMX store. Every time you make a change to the win 7 policies on your machine you will need to copy the policy definitions folder again. This allows your win 7 machines to pick up GPO settings on a win 2k3 server environment.

 

Hope that helps.

[Michael]

I've not seen this problem on any of my networks. I'm deploying both network drives and printers via GPO with no scripts.

 

Four questions come to mind:

 

Are you running Windows 7 SP1?

 

Are you deploying printers using GPP, GPO or a logon/startup script?

 

Are you using logon scripts or GPP to map network drives?

 

And whichever method, are you using the FQDN to map network drives?

[burgemaster]

Cheers, I have done this and no extra GPs have been displayed.

All win7 GPs have been working fine for other windows 7 machines without having a central store.?

 

I dont even have the "Logging and Tracing" sub folder.... Do I need to update the store somehow??

 

Thanks

Tim

 

 

EDIT:

I downloaded the pack from M$ and updated the policy store. Now I see the additional GPs...

Right now to test..

 

THANKS ALL!

Edited December 5, 2011 by burgemaster

[Psymon]

Yes, go into the windows folder on your win 7 machine with RSAT. Copy the policy definitions folder over to the domain\sysvol\domain\policies folder. This will be your central ADMX store. Every time you make a change to the win 7 policies on your machine you will need to copy the policy definitions folder again. This allows your win 7 machines to pick up GPO settings on a win 2k3 server environment.

 

Hope that helps.

 

There is no need to copy the policies over every time you make a change. The ADMX files are simply the templates from which the group policy manager reads information from.

 

The only time you would need to update the ADMX files is if new policies were created in a service pack / update.

 

Simon

[denon101]

Ah, well I always use a belt and braces approach. Good to know though.