GP Folder Re-direction puzzle!!!

[woody]

Ok, this one has perplexed me beyond belief. Help!

 

I have a GP for each year group souley for the purpose of re-directing the My Documents folder onto the server (WS2003). I have had few problems with this until now.

 

I created the GP as usual for the new year 7s. It has been working fine and still is, apart from in one room. They never used this particular room until yesterday when they came in with a MFL teacher. They logged on, with no error messages, and started to work. When they came to save at the end of the lesson, they got the following message when they tried to access their Docs folder:

 

"This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator"

 

We all know that this is the typical message when restrictions are applied through a GP. But why does the Folder redirection not apply in this one room? The room is running XP SP2 clients. The room they normally use for IT is running 2000. But the problem is not an XP one. I have tried a year 7 account on two other XP machines in school and the GP worked, they could access My Docs which was re-directed to the server.

 

So I logged on as a Y7 again and ran gpresult from the command Prompt. It reported that the GP had run successfully!!????

 

I checked the properties of the My Documents folder and it was still looking at a locally created folder!!????

 

Anyone any ideas pleeeaaaassseee?

[SteveT]

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=451

 

Similar problem?

 

It appears that the MS Update can effect permissions etc. but not sure that this would only cause problems on some machines unless it`s something to do with locally stored profiles.

 

I eventually renamed all the "My Docs" folders to "Old Work" and have a line in log-on script to create "My docs" if not already existing

 

IF NOT EXIST N:\MYDOCUMENTS MD "N:\My Documents"

 

this created correct permissions when they logged-on

 

I then copied Old Work folders into their new My Documents folders.

 

Quite a useful exercise actually as it encouraged kids to get rid of work no longer required!!!

[ConTheITGuy]

Tried GPMC?

 

 

Andy.

[ajbritton]

@mark

 

1 - Are you using roaming profiles?

 

2 - What, if anything, is in the event logs (for USERENV I think) when the GP fails?

 

3 - Exactly what path are you redirecting to? I have the feeling the redirection is ever so slightly different between 2000 and XP.

[Geoff]

We all know that this is the typical message when restrictions are applied through a GP. But why does the Folder redirection not apply in this one room? The room is running XP SP2 clients.

 

Known bug in XP SP2. Pay MS money.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888254/EN-US

[ajbritton]

@Geoff: I though that bug only applied to redirection of the Application Data folder. I use XPSP2, My Docs redirect and IE settings without any problems.

[Geoff]

I know but the OP didn't elborate as to if he was redirecting Application Data too. So I thought it was worth mentioning.

[ajbritton]

@Geoff: Quite right too ;-)

[woody]

Andy:

 

What do you mean when you say 'have I tried the GPMC'?

 

Geoff:

 

I'm not redirecting the Application Data. Just My Documents.

 

Ajbritton:

 

1) I'm not using roaming profiles

 

2) Which event log are you reffering to again?

 

3) The exact path is: \\currserv3\year01\%USERNAME%\My Documents

 

The thing that is puzzling me is that it works on other XP SP2 machines in school. Just not in this particular computer room which has 30 PCs, and the redirection works for other years in this room, just not the new year 7s.

[ajbritton]

Mark,

 

I think you should be seeing errors in the Application Log. Probably generated by USERENV. These might give some clues as to why the redirection is failing...

 

I've a feeling that sometimes XP 'puts off' redirecting folders until the next logon. This may be occurring on these PCs.

[Ric_]

The GPMC (Group Policy Management Console) will allow you to query the computers in question and see exactly why the policy was not applied - it could be timing out due to a dodgy link or something.

[tarquel]

@mark_w:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0A6D4C24-8CBD-4B35-9272-DD3CBFC81887&displaylang=en

 

is what Andy was refering to

 

Are you using this to edit your GP and GPO's? If not, do so as its very easy to use and has a great number of features in it that are helpful [compared to not using it]

 

EDIT: Ric beat me to an answer lol

 

Cheers

N.

[ConTheITGuy]

Sorry! Yes - what they said (last 2 posts)! Very handy. Apologies for getting distracted this morning.

 

 

Andy.

[woody]

Yes I am using the Group Policy Management Console. Just didn't realize that it could query a computer or user. Will give it a go and report back! Thanks

[woody]

SOLVED!!!! ajbritton had the answer! I check the application log and it had indeed reported a folder redirection error. It was struggling to copy the contents of the local document folder to the network one. It turned out to be a permissions thing, although I can't see why as I set up the year 7 share with Exactly the same share/ntfs permissions as previous year's folders.

 

However, I did find a microsoft kb article that offered a different way of seting up a secure folder redirection environment. Previously, you had to add 'Authenticated users' to the folder security with special permissions. The current kb article changes 'Authenticated Users' to 'Everyone' instead with alternate special permissions.

 

When I added these permissions, the problem went away and folder re-direction worked.

 

I hope all that makes sense. I'm still puzzled as to why there was a problem in this one particular room. But I'm happy it's workng now.

 

 

Thanks for all suggestions and help - what would I do without Edugeek?

[Geoff]

what would I do without Edugeek?

 

That question has lots of uncomfortable answers that deserve an entire thread to themselves.