Problem with Folder Redirection in Windows Vista

[Sid]

Hi guys (and gals),

I've got a problem trying to sort out folder redirection with Vista.

We've got a S2k3 DC, with several Windows XP, and a handful of Windows Vista clients.

The problem is, when you log on with your roaming profile to a Vista box, it creates a %username%.V2 folder where the user profiles are kept.

Now I understand why this happens ('cus Vista & XP roaming profiles aren't natively interoperable), but I'm having great difficulties when I try to redirect the folders to the related XP folders so that our users have all thier stuff available instantly regardless of what O/S they're on.

I've followed the offical MS White Paper, and got no where.  I've set up the GPO a couple of times and I've had no luck.

I was just wondering if anyone could help me out.

One thing I think might be causing an issue is that we had to install GPMC.MSC onto the Vista box, as it wasn't there...which is appearently the doings of SP1?  Maybe there is something else we're missing on this box to get it rocking?

I'd prefer to setup a GPO or something like that, as it will make life easier when we all end up logging onto Vista boxes.

Anyone got any ideas?

Cheers,

Sid

[DaveLembke]

We hit this issue when we rolled out a few Vista Business editon systems, and we downgraded them back to XP Pro SP2 until we are ready to move to Vista or the next best OS if years from now we are forced to upgrade.

We also tried the group policy to resolve but it just caused more headaches as for what should work wasnt, so we went back to our original configuration. This also helped resolve the problems we were having with users trying to work in the Vista environment and getting lost trying to perform simple tasks because the layout is different than XP.

I am sure there is an answer out there to make this work... and I will be watching this to see what the final solution is in case we have to move to Vista... hopefully someone here will have the answer or point both of us in the right direction to make this work.

[Sid]

I've managed to get it working partially.

I setup a seperate share folder, and redirected the My Docs (and music/pics/vids), Desktop and Start Menu to that folder, which works a treat.

I still come up against a brick wall when trying to share the other folders via GP.

I think the main problem was the fact that the profiles jsut don't want to interoperate when you use the %username% variable.

I think it might be down to Vista thinking that the %username% variable means the ".V2" version when it's available, as I happily have used the % variable for the seperated share folder and both o/s's work absolutely fine.

EDIT:
For some reason, the DC won't let me redirect Application Data...it just comes up with "Access Denied".
Me being an idoit...it tells you why when you change them in Vista...
/EDIT

I have managed to get my own profile sharing across all compatable data (I think?) by manually redirecting the folders once logged in.  I can imagine that could be a ball ache for a large network of non-tech people, but here it might just fly...untill I can find away of doing it autonomously...as we're a small team with a high knowledge...me being the lowest of the pack really.

Anyway, I'm surprised the white paper solution doesn't work...and I'd love to hear from people that have actually got things sharing.  Or at very least, a confirmation on why I can't redirect to folders that have already been created by XP.

Hopefully someone somewhere that has got redirection to work might read this...or let me know why it wont work in the GPO, when it works fine manually...

Sid

[Sid]

I got it working in line with how the white paper says it should!

It was down to NTFS permissions.

However, it played havoc with the Dev teams compiling...so it got scrapped.

I know how to do it now though!!!  Woot.

I wouldn't recomend it though.  Vista seems to "inject" itself into the XP profile, and if you should want to stop redirection...it's a pain, especially as the folder targets aren't redirected by default.  Removing the Dev test went smooth ish, as I haddn't config'd the GPO to re-direct after removal...but removing me, after changing the GPO was a nightmare, I'm just glad I didn't have anything on my profile.

I think the main problem there was the cached profile on the computer was still looking for the targets, which didn't exist.  Once I deleted my profile off the computer, not a problem.  I did however delete my folders prior to that, so it would recreate them fresh...so not sure if just deleting the cached profile would suffice...

Anyways, if anyone is having problems I'm quite happy to attempt to help you!

Sid