GPOs being applied, but they're not

[this_is_gav]

I've got a weird one.

 

On my XP image, the GPOs (deployed from a Server 2008 R2 server) used to work fine, yet for some apparent reason, they're now failing to apply properly. RSOP and GPResult both say the correct GPOs are being applied, yet their effects (such as shared drive remapping, software deployment or printer sharing) aren't materialising. Sysprepping and deploying to a workstation doesn't change this behaviour. Active Directory home folders are working fine.

 

On a fresh, clean XP install the GPOs are still working fine, so I'm wondering if there's a corrupt file or something on my image or if I'm missing something obvious. There's nothing appearing in Event Viewer which arouses suspicion - no errors or warnings at all.

 

Has anyone come across such an issue before?

[sted]

if it xp and all the failed policies are group policy preferences does the image have the gpp update installed as iirc by default xp has no idea what these settings are

[this_is_gav]

... The client-side extensions are still set in WSUS to update on every machine, and like I said, this image was working... but I reinstalled the update manually and those gp preferences are working now.

 

Thanks for drawing my attention to the fact it was just the preferences which weren't applying properly!

[this_is_gav]

OK, it turns out it's not just client-side preferences. Document redirection has stopped working and the single MSI I'm deploying isn't to this image. Again, they're all working on other installations.

 

I think I'm going to have to rebuild an image over the weekend.

[TechSupp]

Before doing anything just try doing a gpupdate on the client, had a strange one of redirected desktop not working a while ago and chased all sorts of dead ends (include a new image) for a few days before I dropped on doing that, one reboot and all was well. Worth a try. The problem never appeared before on others using the same image.

[this_is_gav]

I think I must have done gpupdates and gpupdates /force a million times now.