"My Documents" folder redirection GPO doesn't work ?!

[pvanos]

For several OU's I defined a GPO on my Server 2003, where
in User Configuration\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection\My Documents -> Properties:
Setting: Basic - Redirect everyone's folder to the same location
Target folder location = Redirect to the following location
Root Path: = \\Servername\homedirs\username

I also tried setting
Target folder location = Redirect to the user's home directory
(which shows in tab Settings as: Path: \\%HOMESHARE%%HOMEPATH% )

"Servername" is here the name of the actual server holding the share "homedirs"; and "username" is an actual person's username.

Now, each time I log on as this user, I see on his desktop the icon "My Documents", but when opening it, I see it goes to the default C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents ...but NOT to the homedir !!!

In addition, I see in explorer that this user has indeed obtained the H: drive pointing to his home share Username$, as was set in his account properties, tab Profile, Homefolder : Connect H: to \\Servername\username$


Everyone has full rights on the share Username$, and the user has "full control"-security on his homedir.

Does anyone have an idea what's going wrong here ?

 

[snootalope]

Is it doing this for every user in your domain? Or is it only this user?

How do you know for sure it's looking at the local drive? If you go into the properties of My Documents, does it say it's the local drive?

If you got the policy setup and applied to all authenitcated users...it's gotta work. Your not logging on as an Admin are ya? It is possible that that policy does not apply to domain admins/administrators..

snoots

 

[pvanos]

Thanks for your reaction, Snoots!
Additional info then:
1) The "My Documents" folder on the desktop DOES point to the local drive! It does indeed show C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents
2) I am using roaming profiles, and even deleted the old profile, so that a brand-new profile was created for the user. This to make sure no existing settings could be dominated from the profile. The profile is not mandatory.
3) The user concerned was located in a separate OU, located directly under the root-domain, and is no renamed admin nor member of any admins/administrators group .
4) I added a second user "test" to the same OU, and had also a new roaming profile created for this one. Same happens for this account.
5) For both users, the H:-home drive is correctly assigned, as is shown in Windows Explorer. See my orig msg.

Paul

 

[snootalope]

Well, I guess check the security settings on that particular policy and make sure it's applying to Domain Users then.. Just view the properties of the of the policy and you'll see the security tab..

Also, maybe change something else in your group policy to see if it takes affect just for testing..

snoots

 

[solomonking]

It is not going to change the path in My Docs if the permissions are not set correctly. I would look there first. I now have roaming, redirection, and offline synch working through GPO at my site for all users. I spent most of the setup time on NTFS permissions. Check here

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/xpusrdat.mspx

for the best practices.
I see that you said Everyone has full rights to the share username$. Make sure they have rights to any folders above their home dir. My set up is a share called users that I added rights to a group, this folder only, with list folder/read data access only, that the user was a member of. All of the user's home dirs are under here. Hope this helps.

 

[wayneoakley99]

I was just reading a book by the name of "Windows Server 2003 Unleashed" about this issue.

The book indicates that folder redirection for My Documents is not recommended unless the Home Directory is already defined (the one in the user profile).

For the other directories (like Start Menu) the folder redirection adds the Username and Folder name automatically so the administrator does not have to enter the additional detail but only needs to enter the (recommended) UNC path of server\share.

They also recommend that you let the server create the folders first (done the first time a user logs in) to establish the proper permissions and then populate the contents.

Under NT4TS we were using a common desktop through group policy which does not seem to be done in the same way so we are trying to figure this out as well.

wayne

 

[teknovision]

I'm having a similar problem, wonder if any of you can help?

In Server Management > Users, I set 'Client Document Redirection' for each user to a 'Redirect all My Documents folders to a network folder' and set the Folder Up so that it is Shared for all.. . but it seems that none of the users folders have been 'backed-up'!?

How can I change the frequency, is that in GPO if so, where?

Many thanks for any help you can provide.. . bit green on all of this!!

Phil