policies not applying

[Mike Finch]

We have a native mode W2K domain (originally installed as
an in-place upgrade from an NT4 domain) with W2k servers
and W2k pro, XP pro and NT4 SP6a clients.
There are two group policies that are not getting applied.
Windows Update always gets "Access Denied" when you visit
the URL; I've applied a policy at domain level to disable
the "Remove access to Windows Update" but it doesn't make
any difference. You have to manually change the registry
(HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Policies\Explorer\nowindowsupdate) on each and
every machine in the domain to access the url in IE.
Secondly, there's a folder redirection policy to
redirect "My Documents" to \\servername\%username% which
seems to apply to user accounts within domain admins
groups using W2k Pro and pleb clients running XP pro but
not other pleb W2k Pro clients.
The "Apply Group Policy" permission is set to apply to all
authenticated users on both problem GPOs. I've tried "No
Override" I've tried removing the policy altogether and
applying the settings in the "Default Domain" policy and
the "Default Domain Controllers" GPO - all to no effect.
Any ideas anyone?
Thanks...
Mike

 

[Smelly]

Hard to say, may be a DNS problem. Are no policies working? Make sure all
your clients are pointing to your internal DNS server. Also run gpresult
from a command prompt on a client to see what, if any, policies are being
applied.

 

[Mike Finch]

Thanks for this.

Unforunately, all other policies are working fine; all
clients are pointing to internal DNS server; GPresult
shows that the policy is being applied even though it has
no effect.

It's a mystery!

Mike