Vista and Group Policy - What An Adventure!!!!!

[Guest]

Geez, where do I start? If you thought your GPO kung fu was good, wait until
you dive into Vista!!

Anyway - Documents folder redirection shows up on the server as
\\server\data\users\documents instead of \\server\data\users\username. If
you have 500+ users, then I'll have 500+ folders named 'Documents'. Also the
icon for the folder is different. Can someone explain what is going on? Is
this by design?

 

[Darren Mar-Elia]

John-
Which of the options did you choose when you set up redirection? I suspect
that is the root of your problem. Typically you would choose the option that
says: "Create a folder for each user under the root path" and then enter
your path \\server\data\users or whatever.

Darren

--
Darren Mar-Elia
MS-MVP-Windows Server--Group Policy

Script Group Policy Settings with the GPExpert Scripting Toolkit for
PowerShell!
Find out more at http://www.sdmsoftware.com/products2.php

Visit the GPOGUY: http://www.gpoguy.com -- The Windows Group Policy
Information Hub:
FAQs, Training Videos, Whitepapers and Utilities for all things Group
Policy-related

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply.

When making the setting it was 'Redirect to the following location...' and
the entry is \\server\data\users\%username%.

Then, looking at the setting it is: Basic: Redirect everyone's folder to the
same location

Target folder location is: Create a folder for each user under the root path

Root path is: \\server\data\users

The the usual descriptor about 'For user Clair, this folder will be
re-directed to:
\\server\data\users\clair.

This policy has been in place for our XP environment for some time and works
fine. The existing policy was edited with a Vista system and our ADMX files
have been setup on the sysvol share as per best practices. All works good
except for this quirk. This issue was also posted by another user on
gpanswers.com and he has the same issue.
--
Thanks,
John

John-
Which of the options did you choose when you set up redirection? I suspect
that is the root of your problem. Typically you would choose the option that
says: "Create a folder for each user under the root path" and then enter
your path \\server\data\users or whatever.

Darren

--
Darren Mar-Elia
MS-MVP-Windows Server--Group Policy

Script Group Policy Settings with the GPExpert Scripting Toolkit for
PowerShell!
Find out more at http://www.sdmsoftware.com/products2.php

Visit the GPOGUY: http://www.gpoguy.com -- The Windows Group Policy
Information Hub:
FAQs, Training Videos, Whitepapers and Utilities for all things Group
Policy-related

 

[Darren Mar-Elia]

John-
I'm a little confused by your response. It sounds like you're saying that
you used the "Redirect to the following location" option initially but that
somehow it changed that?

--
Darren Mar-Elia
MS-MVP-Windows Server--Group Policy

Script Group Policy Settings with the GPExpert Scripting Toolkit for
PowerShell!
Find out more at http://www.sdmsoftware.com/products2.php

Visit the GPOGUY: http://www.gpoguy.com -- The Windows Group Policy
Information Hub:
FAQs, Training Videos, Whitepapers and Utilities for all things Group
Policy-related

Thanks for the quick reply.

When making the setting it was 'Redirect to the following location...' and
the entry is \\server\data\users\%username%.

Then, looking at the setting it is: Basic: Redirect everyone's folder to
the
same location

Target folder location is: Create a folder for each user under the root
path

Root path is: \\server\data\users

The the usual descriptor about 'For user Clair, this folder will be
re-directed to:
\\server\data\users\clair.

This policy has been in place for our XP environment for some time and
works
fine. The existing policy was edited with a Vista system and our ADMX
files
have been setup on the sysvol share as per best practices. All works good
except for this quirk. This issue was also posted by another user on
gpanswers.com and he has the same issue.

 

[Guest]

Yes, it is a little confusing on how the model works but we have found that
by doing it this way it gives us what we need. I'll explain:

Create a new policy and go to Folder Redirection > Documents

Setting: Basic - Redirect everyone's folder to the same location

Target Folder location: Redirect to the following location
Root Path: \\server\data\users\%username%

Click OK to create the policy.

Now go back and look at the Documents Properties and it will say:
Setting: Basic - Redirect everyone's folder to the same location
Target folder location: Create a folder for each user under the root path
Root Path: \\server\data\users
Then below that will be the example of "For user Clair, this folder will be
re-directed to: \\server\data\users\Clair

Now go into the GPMC and look at the settings and it will say:
Setting: Basic - Redirect everyone's folder to the same location
Path: \\server\data\users\%username%

This way works for our 3000+ users world wide. We got badly burned once by
setting is up another way and the Clair example showed:

\\server\data\users\Clair\My Documents

We then had the nightmare of a number of users with their real My Documents
setup under the My Documents - the path looked like:

\\server\data\users\Clair\My Documents\My Documents.


So I took the same GPO we have for our XP users, Vistatized it, and it all
works good except for the fact it is rendered on the server as 'Documents'
instead of each user named folder. Under a command prompt on the server it
is OK. The problem would be for a given location we might have 500 users and
to have 500 folders labeld 'Documents' would mess with the Ops staff. Hope
this helps to explain it.

 

[Darren Mar-Elia]

I think sorta follow. So, is the problem only showing up on users who are on
Vista machines? I presume you are using the option in Vista to also apply
the redirection to downlevel clients? In any case, I"m not sure the
environment variable approach works the same on Vista as it does on XP, so
perhaps you will need a separate FR GPO for Vista machines. I admit to not
having tested this particular scenario however.

--
Darren Mar-Elia
MS-MVP-Windows Server--Group Policy

Script Group Policy Settings with the GPExpert Scripting Toolkit for
PowerShell!
Find out more at http://www.sdmsoftware.com/products2.php

Visit the GPOGUY: http://www.gpoguy.com -- The Windows Group Policy
Information Hub:
FAQs, Training Videos, Whitepapers and Utilities for all things Group
Policy-related

 

[Guest]

If I create a user and have them log onto an xp box all is good. As soon as
they log onto a Vista box the symptom appears on the server share and stays
there. If the user logs off and I have them log back onto an xp box the
folder reverts back to their user name. I think this is a *feature* with
Vista.

I'll be opening a case with MS to see what they have to say. Thanks for your
interest and your help.

 

[Mark Heitbrink [MVP]]

Hi,

Target Folder location: Redirect to the following location
Root Path: \\server\data\users\%username%

I have not tried it with the redirection (still no running Vista ;-)
but if you integrate serverbased profiles (roaming user profiles),
Vista adds ".V2" to the path of the profile.

e.g. NT Default: \\server\profiles\%username%
Vista adds automatically: \\server\profiles\%username%.V2

Thats the reason, why sharing one profile per each user no longer
works, which was a popular technic in NT, to hide the folders
-> \\server\username$

Perhaps it´s a problem with the ".v2" in the homedrive aswell?

Mark