"My Documents" folder set to READ-ONLY at first logon!?

[Guest]

We use XP SP1 workstations in an NT4 domain.
Using an NT policy file (.POL) the users' home directory ("My Documents")
is set to "X:\" which is a mapped network drive on the NT4 PDC (the logon
script maps drive X.

PROBLEM: when logging on as a domain user for the first time, Windows sets
the home directory (X:\) to read-only. This happens just after the logon
script has finished. Windows also create a "X:\My Music" folder which is also
set to read-only.
As a result, XP users can't add files to their own home directories.
(the problem does NOT occur on our old NT4 workstations in the same domain)

When removing the read-only attribute (ATTRIB -R X:\) and logging in again
on the same pc, then Windows leaves the directories as is.

For test purposes I temporarily pointed the home directory to a local hard
disk on the pc (D:\...) and the same thing happened: after first logon the
home directory on D:\ was set to read-only. So it does NOT seem to be a
problem on the PDC.

Is it possible te ask XP to NOT set that read-only attribute at logon?

 

[Guest]

Never mind, I think I've found a solution on page
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=256614

Apparently XP ABUSES THE READ-ONLY ATTRIBUTE to mark a folder as
"Customized"!!?
Not a very elegant solution, IMHO. It seems someone at MS just decided one
day "Oh well, that read-only attribute? Nobody uses that anyway, so let's
just say that from now one 'read-only' actually means 'customized'". |-{

 

[Colin Nash [MVP]]

Never mind, I think I've found a solution on page
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=256614

Apparently XP ABUSES THE READ-ONLY ATTRIBUTE to mark a folder as
"Customized"!!?
Not a very elegant solution, IMHO. It seems someone at MS just decided one
day "Oh well, that read-only attribute? Nobody uses that anyway, so let's
just say that from now one 'read-only' actually means 'customized'". |-{

It doesn't (or shouldn't) prevent you from adding files to the folder
though...

 

[Guest]

It doesn't (or shouldn't) prevent you from adding files to the folder
though...

Maybe not on a 'real' NT4 server, but I should have mentioned our PDC is
actually an AS/U PDC (Advanced Server for Unix) running on an HP-UX server.
HP's AS/U interprets the read-only attribute to actual "read-only" access
permissions on the directory (unix permissions: dr-xr-xr-x), which do not
allow adding files to it.
So apparently HP's AS/U isn't 100% 'NT4 compatible' (altough it was sold as
such), but the fact remains that MS simply decided to change the
signification of the read-only attribute.