WHY WON'T ACTIVE DIRECTORY GPO'S WORK?!?!? 1

[BBousman]

I know I have this set up right. Here's how I have my domain set up currently:

Domain
Information Systems OU
InfoSys_Users OU
InfoSys_Computers OU

The domain has the default domain policy with nothing configured. Under the InfoSys_Users & InfoSys_Computers, I have separate GPO's with users and computers in their respective OU's. When I change settings in either InfoSys GPO, nothing happens on the laptops when I log into them. The only way I've been able to change the settings for each account is to do it locally on that particular machine. Everything is linked to where it's supposed to be so I have no clue what's going on!?!?! Any thoughts????

 

[Hagfish]

Are you creating the policy under the OU tree? If so, in my experiences you have to link the GPO to the top level domain for it to work. I was creating GPO's under the specific OU and it was not working. Once I linked it to the top level they started working.

 

[BBousman]

I tried linking them to the Domain as well as the Information Systems OU above those 2 OU's but still nothing happened.

 

[Hagfish]

So if you go to the top domain level and expand it you see your policy there? Or do you have to expand the OU to see your policy? If it's the latter, then it's not linked right. The only other thing I've really ever run into is creating the script in under the "User Configuration" part of the policy when it was supposed to be "Computer Configuration" or vice versa.

 

[BBousman]

I originally had it just under the OU itself but then I also added it to the domain level so it was under the domain as well as the OU that I wanted it to work for. I tried it under everything as well (Domain, Domain Controller, Information Systems OU, InfoSys_Users OU & InfoSys_Computers OU) but still nothing.

 

[porkchopexpress]

XP laptops joined to the domain?

How is the DNS configured on the laptops do they point to your internal DNS server for name resolution?

 

[porkchopexpress]

Also you can open a command prompt and type gpresult this will give you a list of policies that are applying to the laptop.

 

[BBousman]

Here's how the server and XP Pro laptops are set up:

Server -
IP: 172.20.3.94
Subnet: 255.255.0.0
Gateway: 172.20.0.1
DNS: 127.0.0.1

Laptops -
The settings are the same as the server except the IP address is .95, .96 & .97 respectivly.

When I run gpresult it says this:
"The policy object does not exist

 

[porkchopexpress]

Is the DNS service installed on the box with IP address 172.20.3.94?

If so the the settings are incorect they should be:

Server -
IP: 172.20.3.94
Subnet: 255.255.0.0
Gateway: 172.20.0.1
DNS: 172.20.3.94

127.0.0.1 is the loopback address and cannot be used for name resolution.

 

[BBousman]

When I installed Active Directory, that's what it automatically set it back to, the 127.0.0.1. So I should change the DNS on the server and laptops to 172.20.3.94?

 

[porkchopexpress]

Odd i've heard of that happening before but i'm not sure why it's wrong anyway.

The server should point back to itself and the laptops should point to the servers IP as well, so thy should all look to 172.20.3.94 for DNS

Do you just have the one 2003 server with Active Directory and DNS installed?

 

[BBousman]

Yeah, this is just a little test environment I've got setup in the basement of my work here. We're going to be going to Server 2003 w/ Active Directory at the beginning of the year so I wanted to make sure we could get it to work properly. I'll try changing the DNS servers around and see what that does.

 

[porkchopexpress]

I'm almost certain that will be the problem Active Directory totally relies on DNS so when it's not setup right thing stop working pretty quickly.

 

[BBousman]

Or not even begin to work at all in my case! LoL but you were right, it now works, I owe you man! Thanks so much!!

 

[porkchopexpress]

No probs.

 

[porkchopexpress]

Not sure how much you know about Windows DNS but you will find the laptops cannot get on the internet now, you will need to configure forwarders on the DNS server. Take a look at the link below if you need to.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323380/

 

[BBousman]

Yeah well for right now it's just on a hub so I don't want it to get internet connection but eventually I will! Thanks for everything!