XP folder redirect

[basspro]

Running W2K server, client was W2K Pro. Client was and still is in OU that redirects My Documents to a server. Everything worked fine.
Changed client to XP Pro.
Upgraded Windows 2000 group policies for Windows XP as per Microsoft knowledge base article 307900.
Client's My Documents now NOT being redirected to server.

Was also redirecting Start Menu and this works ok on the XP client, just the My Documents redirection does not work.

XP client is in same OU and same group as other W2K users and their My Documents redirection works fine so I am pretty sure it is not a permission problem.

 

[aaronjonmartin]

TO redirect my documents on XP pro, right click My Documents, go to properties, under the target tab click the move button, locate folder on server you want to be the target of My documents, click ok, click ok.

Hope this helps

 

[bcastner]

Microsoft has a good troubleshooter for folder redirection issues with XP and Win2k server:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prde_ffs_ykko.asp

As a guess either the registry is not correct, or the gpresult /v will show that a policy object needs to be modified.

 

[basspro]

Additional information:
If the same user (XP client) signs on to a W2K PC then everything works ok. The user's My Documents is redirected to the server.

When I run gpresult /v the result is the My Documents group policy shows up under 'Applied Group Policy Objects'; however, when the user signs on to the XP machine My Documents is not redirected.

The XP registry shows that the policy has not taken affect.

Thus, permissions cannot be the problem, the group policy if run on a W2K PC works fine, but when the same group policy is run on a XP PC the group policy is not applied.

Still at a loss...

 

[bcastner]

Two things:

1. On logon the person has a choice of a Domain logon or username (This computer). If the domain choice is the latter there will be no Domain policies applied. If there is no choice in the Domain section of the logon, or the Domain section of the logon panel does not appear, then the machine has not been joined to the Domain. Join the machine to the domain and then perform the Domain logon with the username and password.

2. If all in #1 has been successful, and the registry entries still show local paths for the profiles, make the manual registry edits to point to the redirected folders.

 

[basspro]

The machine is joined to the domain (Start Menu is being redirected).

I understand that I can manually change the registry; however, I certainly would not want to have to do this to hundreds of machines as XP rolls out.

 

[bcastner]

I agree, and I do not think you have to. If this is a case of a new roll-out then I suspect the other issues discussed in the Troubleshooter link above apply. Your workstation is having troubles authenticating and creating valid and permitted access to the Domain shares required. The failure of GPO is an obvious sign that your XP to Win2k connectivity is failing. XP is profoundly different in how it communicates in a Win2k server setting than the Win2k client. For a discussion, see: faq779-4017

The troubleshooter mentions that the redirection failure can come from four causes, (emphasis mine):

1. Network Connectivity.

Ping the server by its IP address to test base-level IP connectivity; ping the server by name to test Domain Name System (DNS) name resolution.

If the server that contains redirected folders is offline, and Offline Files is disabled, users cannot access their data. For more information about how to enable Offline Files, see "Implementing Offline Files" earlier in this chapter.

If the server that contains the redirected folders is offline, and Offline Files is enabled, users should have access to their data if those files were accessed when the users were previously online. If these files and folders are not available, see "Files Available When Online Are Not Available When Offline" later in this chapter.

2. Insufficient Access Rights. Verify that the user has enough file security to access folders to which his or her data is redirected. You should assign a user Full Control security access on the access control lists (ACLs) of the root of the share where he or she redirects data.

3. Disk Quota. Check whether there is a disk quota enabled on the volume that contains the redirected folder. If there is a quota enabled, make sure that this quota is not exceeded. If it is exceeded, increase the quota or have the user delete files.

4. Mapped Drive. Check the folder redirection target in the applicable GPO. If it is a mapped drive, change it to the UNC path for the share location. Folder redirection is processed before drive mappings, so mapped drives are not recognized by the folder redirection component.

I honestly believe the issue is a DNS failure on the part of the XP client, and the need to adjust logon scripts or batch files to reflect XP requirements in a Win2k domain.

 

[basspro]

And the winner is...
it seems there may be an undocumented Microsoft feature.
Remember, the XP user was originally a W2K user with folder redirection working fine. That same user, when moved to an XP machine suddenly cannot access redirected My Documents.

After two full days of research I decided to try the following... create a new folder on the server, copy the user's data from the redirected My Documents to the new folder, delete the redirected user's folder on the server, have the user log off, log on and what do you know... folder redirection now works. Registry reflects redirection, user can access redirected folder.

I copied the users data back into the redirected My Documents folder on the server and everything is ok.

The only thing I can figure is somehow the security credentials are different when accessing the server from an XP machine versus a W2K machine.

 

[bcastner]

A win2k Power User is not equal to an XP Power User, and so on through the default groups.

The XP user has much more limited rights out of the box. You might consider using the wkstcmpt.adm administrative template for the XP users, as it is designed to reconcile the differences between XP and Win2k clients.