I work in an educational institute and have 200+ PC's running NT 4 Workstation. I have created a disk image by building one PC. I have logged on this PC using all student logon usernames. This has created local user profiles so that when a student logs on all the right icons and mapped drives appear. This has been working like a dream for nearly a year in conjuction with security software call outs have been drastacally reduced. BUT recently our Servers have been rebuilt (not by me!, they were completely re-formatted) and sincethen the LOCAL user profiles do not work. If you log on to a PC under any username (except administrator) you get the same shortcuts as any other username. Similarly if you create a shortcut e.g. to a network drive on the desktop it appears for every user. It also stores these additional shortcuts in the wrong path - c:\winnt\desktop instead of c:\winnt\profiles\%username%. This NEVER happened before and is really annoying! Anybody have any ideas? It's got me!
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Corrupt Local User Profiles in NT4 Workstation
- Thread starter wix5ie
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- #3
The config.pol wasn't there at first but after my protests they restored an old version from a backup tape which I edited to how it used to be and that works fine. As for the SAM database I am told that it was backed up and restored succesfully. But I'm not so sure because the old usernames in usermanager on the PDC are not working and I have had to delete the most common ones and create new ones. This however does not solve the problem of any new icons on the desktop being placed in the wrong path.....
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The policy file is actually called 'ntconfig.pol' and I'm not sure how I would 'rehome' the local user profile. Is this possible in Policy Editor? Also what I would ideally like to do is find out how this problem occured because even after a clean install of NT Workstation the local PC still produces the same results. My thoughts are similar to yours as in hack the registry on the Server as that is the only thing that has changed. But where do you start!
Probably the easiest way is to use the find function in regedit and type in the exact path that you are currently seeing. Check the keys that come up until you find the correct one. You can then export the key make the change and then use that reg file in your scripts to change everyone. Make sure you test the edit well before you roll it out. Let me know if you need more explicit suggestions.
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Sorry to sound so thick but what am I searching for? The incorrect path which the icons are being placed? If so I have done this and it doesn't appear in regedit....both on a local PC and on the server.....so yes a more explicit suggestion would probably help me!!
OK. Basically, there are a plethora of reasons why this could have happened given the total rebuild. There are also a lot of ways to address this. I am assuming this is the reason no one else is piping in and why I am having trouble giving you clear direction. You have a lot of options and which one will work best for you is hard to call. It all revolves around the registry and there are a number of ways to change it. I will be glad to discuss this with you further, but email may work better. You can contact me at mcconmw@hotmail.com.
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