Question : Folders will not redirect despite GPO settings originally working

Hi there. Firstly I'm a brand new user to Experts Exchange so I'm hoping someone can help!

My situation is quite simple. I have a Windows 2003 Server that I have just set up. I have setup all user accounts to have roaming profiles. The roaming profiles are setup to the path format of:

\\Mugwuffin\Roaming Profiles\%username% (Mugwuffin is my sole server)

Additionally to this I am setting up folder redirection for My Documents, Application Data and the Desktop. I have done this because I don't want all the data to download each time a new computer is added, especially as some users will be entirely VPN based. I have created an OU called 'Blue Mercury' and placed all users in it. I have also created a GPO and linked it to this OU. In the GPO I have specified redirection for all the forementioned folders, with the following settings:

Setting: Basic - Redirect Everyone's folder to the same location
Target Folder Location: Create a folder for each user under the root path
Root Path: \\Mugwuffin\Redirected Folders
'Grant the User exclusive rights to My Documents' is switched off
'Move the contents of My Documents to the new location' is switched on
'Redirect the folder back to the local userprofile location when policy is removed' is selected

The first time i set this up and logged a brand new user in it worked ok, except for the desktop folder. It automatically created a folder in the name of the user in the profiles share. It then also created a folder in the name of the user in the Redirected Folders share, and created my documents and application data folders in as sub folders of this. The destop folder never appeared. So i started completely again, deleting accounts, removing profiles and creating new user accounts from scratch. Now nothing will redirect! The roaming profile still creates fine, but no redirected folders (or parent user folders) ever appear for any users, and when you log as a given user on a Windows XP machine the My Documents folder is being stored as a local folder in a profile directly on the local XP box!

I have spent all day with this, and gone through every Microsoft article I can find. I've gone through every question on this site also, but all it seems to have confirmed there is nothing wrong with the settings. It is the same GPO I have been using all along, linked to the same OU. Also all folder shares are set to full permissions for everyone.

I just recreated a few user accounts, and few new test ones and redirection simply will not work. I even pulled my old MCSE books off the shelf and read everything I could on GPOs, and could not find anything.

I am going mad with it :(

If I'm doing something stupid I am more than happy to be corrected. If anyone out there has had this problem and can help, I will be so grateful.

I look forward to some advice from the professional community. Thanks so much in advance guys :)

Answer : Folders will not redirect despite GPO settings originally working

>>>Oh my goodness. I am such an absolute idiot! We had some problems with the DNS service on the Domain Controller the other day, so I switched the DNS settings of my client system to point manually to another DNS server. That other DNS server is not a domain controller, and thus the client wasn't gettting group policy object settings properly. I'd forgotten altogether that I'd ever messed with the DNS settings and so didn't check TCP/IP properties for the net connection. However I just run GPOTools and GPResults on the client machine, and relised that only Domain Wide Group Policies were somehow being inherited. The OU assigned GPO wasn't. There were a load of error codes that straight away made me realise my mistake. SystmProg you are star for introducing me to these utilites, and I am enourmously grateful.

That's great! you did it.

Group Policy is a big chapter in windows. Its a part of great technology intruduced by Microsoft "IntelliMirror". It is not so easy to troubleshoot Group Policy. Group Policy needs DC SRVs registered in DNS...if DC SRVs are not registered clients will not take group policy settings.

>>>Although I do have one last question (incidentally you have already well and truly earned your 500 points, so just let me know how I give you those). Having now got everything working again, I am back to my original problem (of about a week ago, and that i didn't mention before). Basically all the redirecting works, but what i would like to be able to do is import a profile (that has already been running locally on my machine ) to a roaming profile, and then for the relevant folders to automatically move to the redirected locations. I've not managed this, that is, the profile has been moved sucessfully to the roaming profile but the desktop, start menu, application data and my doc folder are still in the roaming profile, and not in their redirected locations. Do I just move the folders manually?

No. Not at all. Moving the folder manually will put you in problem because all permisions will lost. You need to use either Robocopy.exe or you can copy the profile from System Property : -

Check this: - HOW TO COPY ROAMING USER PROFILES
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q142682/

For points you need to click on "ACCEPT" button right in front of my name. :-)

Thanks for your reply.
Let me know if you have any other query.

SystmProg