Question : Ramdom folders created in C root

I have a huge problem here people!!

We just installed a new enviroment for one of our clients, it consists of a Windows SBS2008 as the DC, Windows 2008 standard running SQL, and onother Windows 2008 standard as a Terminal server.

We put in all new HP machines as clients running Windows XP SP2, joined them to the domain, through computer propreties > computer name; Which seemed just fine.

Not a day into the new enviroment we started seeing that some computers were "generating" ramdom folders in C:\ ; What's in them, you may ask? All of them contain the same thing, which looks like a SQL SP3 package; So it seems that the machine is trying to apply SQL sp3, and when it fails it just crates a new temporary folder to try again.

I tried to run the update manualy by just going to one of the folders and running the setup.exe, what hapens is that it starts running the setup, I get a couple of wizzards screens, click (next>next) but sometime in the middle of the install the machine just reboots.

Now, in on itself it's really not a huge problem, but what I had happen to 3 machines at this point, is that you can't even log in anymore! As soon as a user logs in the machine just reboots! If I'm fast enough I can bring up the task manager, and I did notice some kind of SQL process running, but the machine reboots too fast and I wasn't able to right down the exact process, I'm guessing it's the machine trying to apply the patch?

Now, out of the 15 machines we put in, maybe 7 of them present this problem, the ramdom folders, and like I said 3 of them are now just rebooting at log on. I did notice that these HP come pre installed with: "HP protections tools", which seems, for some strange reason, install a copy of SQL express? Also, these machines run another software which uses SQL:"Dolphin imaging", but like I said, not all the machines present the problem, so I don't know what to make of it.

I checked the DC and there are absolutely no automatic log on scripts being loaded, I know some versions of SBS loved to sneak in SBS log on scripts. So, I don't think is something the server is trying to push down.

I think that's all, there's nothing else I can think of which is unique to this enviroment.

HEEEEELPPPPP!!!!

Answer : Ramdom folders created in C root

I figured out the problem myself!!

SQL server VSS writer was the culprit. None of the applications that we need to run use it either!! It came pre installed with the HP machines, a simple disable of the service took care of the problem