Help with SP4...uninstall?

[deik313]

I am currently supporting a Windows 2000 server with about 65 clients (learning as I go ). Server has been running smoothly for 3 years. Recently I installed SP4 and SP4 rollup, and am experiencing problems with users roaming profiles. They are just doing weird things! They will work fine one day, and next day they will become corrupt locally. I installed UPHCLEAN on the workstations, which helped a little. The event log shows that the profile is not unloading on the machine correctly, causing the NTUSER.DAT file to be inaccessible (I think). Should I uninstall SP4? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to why they work sometimes and other times do not. The student loses all of his files because it recreates a temporary profile.

Also, I am a little unsure as to whether I actually installed SP4 correctly. When I looked at installed programs, it did not show at first, but showed SP4 rollup. Then, I installed SP4 (again, I guess), and they both showed. I was concerned that things got installed in incorrect order, so I deleted them both and reinstalled them in order. Is this correct?

When I run Windows Update, does it automatically install SP's to Windows 2000, or do I have to choose them manually from Microsoft web site? Are there hotfixes that I should apply?

Thanks for any help...

 

[deik313]

Is there anyone who can help me with this? This is a school, and the students are losing all of their work. Should I uninstall SP4? Did I install it correctly?

 

[porkchopexpress]

SP4 can be installed from Windows update and should show up in system and add remove progs, it can be reinstalled so the second time you installed it should of cleared up any problems.

In Windows 2000, certain applications and services keep registry keys open after the user logs off, preventing Windows from unloading the user's registry. When this occurs, profiles become locked and changes that users have made to their profiles are not saved to the server.

Can you not use the Delete cached copies of roaming profiles option in active directory this might help prevent Windows creating a temp folder at next logon?

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...on/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/gp/15.asp

 

[deik313]

Thank you so much for your response. This is a huge problem because at the moment the MyDocuments folder is included in the profile (haven't redirected). I am working on that one!

The reason why I haven't implemented the "delete cached copy" feature is because, sometimes when the profile does not close correctly, the changes don't get copied back to the server. Then, if the local copy is deleted, all the users documents are gone! I saw several hot fixes related to this issue, but I have no idea what is actually installed on the server now.

Any ideas why Windows Update would have installed the SP4 rollup, and not SP4? When I looked in the Installed Programs list, only the rollup showed, not SP4. How can I tell what SPs and hotfixes are actually installed on the server?

Thank you for your help!

 

[porkchopexpress]

Oh i see the problem now, i bet that produces some long logon times.

If the machine was originally installed from a slipstreamed source with SP4 then it wouldn't of shown up in add remove programs, otherwise i'm not sure as the rollup shouldn't install without SP4.

 

[porkchopexpress]

I would recommend redirecting the users work folders as you really should be running SP4 and all the latest updates if possible.