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Group Policy Conundrum

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Roadki11

Roadki11

MIS
Mar 23, 2005
1,097
US
I have Windows 2003 Standard server running Terminal Server in Application Mode. I have a hand full of users in an OU with a GP pretty well locked down for this server. I have a URL I need to access by passing a system variable with the URL, this URL is going to an in house server. This is an example of what I need to do, The problem I have is its not picking up the username variable. If I take the user out of the OU with the locked down GP and connect to the same server that link works fine. So I know my problem is in the GP somewhere I just can’t figure out where. Now if I change the URL to this, it works fine. So I think to myself maybe its because I restricted access to the command shell(cmd.exe), but nope that isn’t the problem either. I opened access to the command shell and if I do “echo %username%” it replies with the username, but the URL still will not work. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

thanks
 
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are you using the IE address lookup to parse the URL with the %var% in? Or constructing the var in a script and parsing the newly anylised URL, with resolved variable, then passing that to IE?

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant
 
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No i am not doing anything fancy here. Its just an IE shortcut i created with the %username% system variable tacked on the end of the URL, which should pickup the logged on username. Something in my GP is stopping it from resolving the %username% variable into the actual username.
 
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The only thing I can guess is that it is resolving this server side, do you have an actual environment variable in the Windows Environment Variable that is populated by a script, otherwise, Im not sure how when the shortcut is created this would be populated. My guess, to test this, would be to create a static EnvVar on the AD server called Username, and give that a value of a valid URL extention, your MikeBarnes or whatever, then create your Shortcut with the http:\\........blah.blah\%username%

deploy the new policy, and see if the shortcut is created with MikeBarnes on the client, that all I can guess, if not, and the policy is resolving the var clientside, and the var is populated in WinEnvVars, then let us know..

all i can suggest for now.

Hope this Helps

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant
 
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I would alter the web page to look for the user name and not rely on the variable in the URL string.

somehting like:

Code: 
<%@ LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" %>
<%
Set WSHNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
userstring = WSHNetwork.UserName
%>
<HTML>
<BODY>
<% Response.Write userstring %>
</BODY>
</HTML>



I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark
 
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Thanks for all the input, the vbscript below is what i ended up doing to accomplish what i needed. it will grap the logged on username and launch IE with the specified URL and attach the username to the end of it. works good.

RoadKi11


Code: 
Dim WSHShell, WSHNetwork, UserString, oIE

Set WSHShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set WSHNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")

'Get user name
UserString = WSHNetwork.UserName

'Launch the URL with username attached at end
Set oIE = WScript.CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application") 
oIE.Visible = True 
oIE.Navigate("[URL unfurl="true"]http://10.100.1.200/blah/2005/blahblah.html?"[/URL] + UserString) 

'Clean up memory used
set WSHNetwork = Nothing
set WSHShell = Nothing
set UserString = Nothing
Set oIE = Nothing

'Quit the Script
wscript.quit
 
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