Workstation erases user folders at logoff

[todobear]

A client recently had a problem where one notebook was only seeing a subset of shares when VPNing in, altho she could see everything fine when in the office. After checking and verifying the user's account and various other things to no avail, I finally deleted the computer account and recreated it, which seems to have solved the problem. However, it seems to have caused a new problem (isn't it always the case?):

Whenever the user closes down her notebook, the system now deletes all her user folders, along w/desktop, my docs, etc. At logon the account folders are recreated from scratch, and the user gets a blank desktop with the 'Welcome to Windows' dialog. I've tried various voodoo on the user folders w/o any success.

I'd guess there's a security ID issue at the bottom of this, but can't figure out how to get rid of it. If anyone has a fix, I'd be very grateful to hear it!

Michel Bolsey

 

[Jpoandl]

Are you using roaming profiles?
Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

 

[todobear]

Not intentionally! Until the last flurry of activity, the machine was using local profiles - like all stations on this network.

HOWEVER - I wonder if the machine has somehow changed this profile to roaming, without there actually being a roaming profile located on the server. This would fit the symptoms, and I will check asap.

Thanks for your suggestion, Joseph. I hadn't thought 'profiles' at all.

Michel

 

[todobear]

Just to report back on this issue: it turned out that the self-destructing profile was listed as local, not roaming. However, I discovered that it was invisible to all users, including admins, EXCEPT to itself. Which left no way - as far as I could determine - to administer it.

As a workaround, I deleted the relevant user account on the local machine (to get around credential errors), gave the user admin privileges temporarily on the server (to get around access denied issues), and readded the machine/user to the domain.

Probably ass-backwards, but it worked in the end. If anyone can explain what I might have done in the first place, I'd be grateful. I think there are some subtilties in the way local users, domain users and machines function together that I haven't fully understood...

Michel