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January 5, 2007
Annoying Microsoft Home Directory Problem...
Before you say it, yes...this is the CISCO blog. But I do Microsoft administration as well and this problem was SO annoying, I had to put it somewhere for future reference and will hopefully help some out in the process. Here's the problem:
I use Microsoft Active Directory to map user drives for users on a network by using the simple method shown in the screencap below:
Simple enough, right? Well, here's where the problem comes in. On different machines, with random users, the U: drive ended up mapping to the parent share rather than the user's personal home directory (in the case of the screencap above, Jeremy ended up with his U: drive mapped to \\win2003\homes rather than \\win2003\homes\jeremy). Now, mind you this only happens some times, not all the time... So after hours of mindlessly searching Microsoft and Google, I stumbled across the answer...and I didn't even have to pay www.experts-exchange.com's yearly 99 bucks to get it (I hate fee-based blogs with a passion).
The problem comes because of Window XP's "fast logon" behavior. Ever notice how that CTRL-ALT-DEL screen comes up super fast when you boot? There is a price to pay...If the user logs on before the network has a chance to initialize, the XP operating system automatically skips group policies, logon scripts, and ...my problem...the home drive maping.
So here's the fix: turn off the fast logon behavior with a Group Policy. Here's where you do it:
Sure, it takes a few seconds longer for the logon prompt to appear...small price to pay.
...and I've decided to switch to Apple now ;o)
Posted by JC at January 5, 2007 4:19 PM
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Comments
We had so many problems with the map drives issues we finally developed everything under kixstart - a free scripting language if you haven't tried it. So many Win Admins swear by it we had to give it a shot. Our login scripts have grown so much using this language - it makes so many remedial tasks that much easier.
http://www.kixtart.org/index.asp
We also wanted to map multiple drives based upon group membership which it handles very easily.
Just something to think about.
Posted by: lime at February 27, 2007 6:32 AM
Cisco Blog you saved my marriage! This is an awesome tip!
Posted by: David at February 28, 2007 10:34 AM
Thanks lime - I'm definitely going to check this out; looks awesome!
Posted by: JC at March 6, 2007 8:28 PM
About the experts-exchange site, it contains a wealth of information on various topics, but I too hate the required registration and fees but there is a way to get around it.
Ie: Register to be an expert its free. Heres a link:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/registerFree2.jsp?rsid=110&redirectURL=%2F
Credit to : http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2005/12/how-to-get-free-technical-support-for.html
Posted by: Mansoor Nathani at August 28, 2007 1:19 PM