Please Read - Windows XP and Roaming Profiles

  • Thread starter Thread starter Raffi
  • Start date Start date
R

Raffi

Hi Folks,

I've stumbled on a problem that I haven't been able to find a
solution. It's concerning the Windows XP shutdown process. Some
Windows XP machines do the following (among other things) during
shutdown:

1. Close network connections
2. Save settings

This seems to create a problem when using roaming profiles. After the
user makes changes to their profile, the Windows XP workstation needs
to save the changes to the server during shutdown. But since Windows
XP is closing the network connection before saving the user settings,
the profile on the server is not updated.

The solution would be a way to change the shutdown process on the
Windows XP workstation to:

1. Save settings
2. Close network connections

Is there a way to configure the XP shutdown process to save the
settings and then continue shutting down the PC (including network
connections)?

BTW, Windows 2000 machines on the same network do not have this
problem. They all save settings before shutdown and their profiles get
properly updated on the server.

Other problems I've read about in newsgroups may also be related to
this. These include deleted files reappearing the next time the user
logs on to the domain. The cause may be the same since the profile was
never updated and the file was never deleted from the domain server's
profile and re-appears when the profile is re-loaded the next time the
user logs on.

I'm posting this on Samba/Linux/BSD newsgroups as well since the
server is a FreeBSD/Samba PDC.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Raffi
 
Raffi said:
Hi Folks,

I've stumbled on a problem that I haven't been able to find a
solution. It's concerning the Windows XP shutdown process. Some
Windows XP machines do the following (among other things) during
shutdown:

1. Close network connections
2. Save settings

This seems to create a problem when using roaming profiles. After the
user makes changes to their profile, the Windows XP workstation needs
to save the changes to the server during shutdown. But since Windows
XP is closing the network connection before saving the user settings,
the profile on the server is not updated.
Click to expand...

... I'm running a node for students' PC's with XP, Samba and roaming profiles
and I've never noticed that the profiles are not updated on the server ..
maybe you are having some other problem ?
 
I'm getting 1 userenv warning:

warning - Category none, Event ID 1525 (Windows has detected that
Offline Caching is enabled on the Roaming Profile share - to avoid
potential profile corruption, Offline Caching must be disabled on
shares where roaming user profiles are stored). I know how to disable
offline caching on Samba but I doubt it will have an effect on this
problem.

I'm also getting 1 eventsystem warning and 1 autoenrollment error
which may be related to this problem

warning - Category 52, Event ID 4356 (The COM+ Event System failed to
create an instance of the subscriber partition:)

error - Category none, Event ID 15 (Automatic certificate enrollment
for local system failed to contact the active directory (0x8007054b).
The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted).
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I've thought of this too, but if something
else was causing the problem most likely the Windows 2000 machines
would be having problems too. BTW, Windows ME profiles are working
fine as well. The problem seems to be isolated to machines running
Windows XP Pro.

Raffi
 
Raffi said:
I'm getting 1 userenv warning:

warning - Category none, Event ID 1525 (Windows has detected that
Offline Caching is enabled on the Roaming Profile share - to avoid
potential profile corruption, Offline Caching must be disabled on
shares where roaming user profiles are stored). I know how to disable
offline caching on Samba but I doubt it will have an effect on this
problem.
Click to expand...

It's a very good idea to disable offline caching on profile directories-
I've seen it cause tons of problems. If you change this, login and test, see
if it works....
I'm also getting 1 eventsystem warning and 1 autoenrollment error
which may be related to this problem

warning - Category 52, Event ID 4356 (The COM+ Event System failed to
create an instance of the subscriber partition:)
Click to expand...

Not related
error - Category none, Event ID 15 (Automatic certificate enrollment
for local system failed to contact the active directory (0x8007054b).
The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted).
Click to expand...

Interesting, but not related -
"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
Any userenv errors in your event logs?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
OK, I tried logging on with offline caching disabled in Samba (csc
policy = disable) and it didn't solve the problem. I'm not surprised
by this since the machine still tried to save the profile settings
after closing the network connections.

Any other suggestions? I still would like to know how I can make
Windows XP save settings THEN close network connections. If anyone out
there knows how to do this, please post.

Thanks,

Raffi

Lanwench said:
Raffi said:
I'm getting 1 userenv warning:

warning - Category none, Event ID 1525 (Windows has detected that
Offline Caching is enabled on the Roaming Profile share - to avoid
potential profile corruption, Offline Caching must be disabled on
shares where roaming user profiles are stored). I know how to disable
offline caching on Samba but I doubt it will have an effect on this
problem.
Click to expand...

It's a very good idea to disable offline caching on profile directories-
I've seen it cause tons of problems. If you change this, login and test, see
if it works....
I'm also getting 1 eventsystem warning and 1 autoenrollment error
which may be related to this problem

warning - Category 52, Event ID 4356 (The COM+ Event System failed to
create an instance of the subscriber partition:)
Click to expand...

Not related
error - Category none, Event ID 15 (Automatic certificate enrollment
for local system failed to contact the active directory (0x8007054b).
The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted).
Click to expand...

Interesting, but not related -
"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
Any userenv errors in your event logs?

Raffi wrote:
Hi Folks,

I've stumbled on a problem that I haven't been able to find a
solution. It's concerning the Windows XP shutdown process. Some
Windows XP machines do the following (among other things) during
shutdown:

1. Close network connections
2. Save settings

This seems to create a problem when using roaming profiles. After
the user makes changes to their profile, the Windows XP workstation
needs to save the changes to the server during shutdown. But since
Windows XP is closing the network connection before saving the user
settings, the profile on the server is not updated.

The solution would be a way to change the shutdown process on the
Windows XP workstation to:

1. Save settings
2. Close network connections

Is there a way to configure the XP shutdown process to save the
settings and then continue shutting down the PC (including network
connections)?

BTW, Windows 2000 machines on the same network do not have this
problem. They all save settings before shutdown and their profiles
get properly updated on the server.

Other problems I've read about in newsgroups may also be related to
this. These include deleted files reappearing the next time the user
logs on to the domain. The cause may be the same since the profile
was never updated and the file was never deleted from the domain
server's profile and re-appears when the profile is re-loaded the
next time the user logs on.

I'm posting this on Samba/Linux/BSD newsgroups as well since the
server is a FreeBSD/Samba PDC.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Raffi
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Raffi said:
OK, I tried logging on with offline caching disabled in Samba (csc
policy = disable) and it didn't solve the problem. I'm not surprised
by this since the machine still tried to save the profile settings
after closing the network connections.

Any other suggestions? I still would like to know how I can make
Windows XP save settings THEN close network connections. If anyone out
there knows how to do this, please post.
Click to expand...

DNS (reverse) Problems cause some errors on XP when 2k is ok. Is WINS
enabled?
 
Pertti Kosunen said:
DNS (reverse) Problems cause some errors on XP when 2k is ok. Is WINS
enabled?
Click to expand...

Hello,

Thanks for the suggestion. The same server that is the PDC also runs
DNS (Bind 8). Forward and reverse zones are appropriately set up and
lookups work just fine. Also, WINS is enabled in smb.conf (wins
support = Yes).

I can't see anything out of the ordinary in the Samba log file for XP
computer.

Please keep the suggestions coming. I've been working with this
problem for almost a week without any success. I need to get to the
bottom of it soon.

Raffi
 
Does the userenv log show anything (%windir%\Debug\UserMode\userenv.log).

Type userenv in Help while online to see how to switch on verbose mode (but try without to begin with).

You can get a description of error numbers that are Win32 (those which aren't like this - 80072086) by typing
net helpmsg <decimal number>

Use calculator in science mode to convert.

There will be lots of errors as windows tests stuff (does file exist?) It tell if it exists by the absense of an error (or error 0). But it may not exist on every configuration so it's not a real error.
 
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