Windows 7 wireless clients no desktop icons after login.

[Daleus]

Hi everyone!

 

Can not figure this one out for the life of me.

 

Windows 7 Pro 32bit netbook clients. When a user logs in they (80% of the time) have no desktop icons. I first chalked this down to spotty wifi but a few things lead me to believe the wifi isn't at fault..

 

• I have the desktops assigned per user and they work every time if the clients are connected via an ethernet cable.
  
• Even though they have no desktops the assigned drives are still there and work fine, no drop outs. same for internet.
  
• If the icons do appear they can either be 100% fine or greyed out with a small cross on them. (offline files?)
  
• Refreshing does nothing.
  
• 'Show Desktop Icons' is enabled on the clients desktop context menu
  

 

Is it worth assigning a network drive to the 'desktop' folder on the network and then just changing policy so that desktops are loaded from Z:\ or whatever? the network drives never seem to be offline so this may be an easy fix - but surely the behaviour they are showing isn't normal?

 

Thanks for any insight.

[SYNACK]

Or setup the netbooks to use offline folder sync on the shortcut folder making the network less taxed and more resilient.

[Brpilot99]

Are they taking such a long time to login that group policies times out? I had the same problem ... I cured it by adding my local dns server ip to the wireless internet settings on each netbook ... the login times were faster by 45% and the redirected desktops appeared as normal

[Daleus]

Are they taking such a long time to login that group policies times out?

 

No, they login quite quick! really hoped this could have been it, unfortunately the netbooks already have a static local DNS server address set. It may be worth changing them to another DNS server though they all use a secondary DNS server opposed to our primary one.

 

Thanks Brpilot this might be be a good idea you've given me!

[Brpilot99]

Your welcome .. keep us posted

[Brpilot99]

Just a PS dont forget that the static dns can be set for the NIC and also a separate one for the wireless

[Michael]

Try enabling this GPO: Computer Configuration > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Logon - Always wait for the network at computer start and logon - Enabled

[Daleus]

Try enabling this GPO: Computer Configuration > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Logon - Always wait for the network at computer start and logon - Enabled

 

Michael I have this enabled anyway due to the fact these netbooks are pants. Our full size laptops seem fine. Another great suggestion though for anyone who might have missed it.

 

Update!

 

Seem to have settled it quite a bit, I consolidated quite a bit of stuff into one single policy and this seems to have helped for now. Unfortunately I will have to wait until tomorrow to hear any feedback.

 

Thanks for all your great suggestions!

[Michael]

To be honest I think you always need to enable that policy for Folder Redirection, irrelevant whether or not the hardware's pants. It all boils down to how GPOs are processed - synchronous or asynchronous. Unfortunately asynchronous is great for speed, but doesn't always apply all policies as required. This is why you're typically required to logoff and back on again for it to work. Enabling the GPO (excluding other possible problems) Folder Redirection works correctly first time, every time.