poledt/netlogon problem (WNT)

[ciarank]

We have an NT4 domain. A change has been made on Group Policy Editor.
It was Default computer - Custom Programs.

The box was checked, to show the path of the custom programs folder:

The path was

%winnt%\profiles\All users\Start menu\programs

Now ALL programs on ALL clients (NT4/2000/XP) have disappeared from the Start menu.

They are still there as I can browse to \start menu\All users and see all the programs.

We have unchecked the box in policy editor to try and rectify the problem - but it still doesn't work.

As a workaround I have copy \all users\programs to the favourites folder and programs can be accessed but this is really unsuitable.

I beleive the real problem lies in the fact that POLEDIT\NETLOGON is not working correctly in the domain.

I there a way I can check to see the results of policy being implemented on a client?



any ideas?

[king_ging]

go to a client pc and have a search for "profiles\All users\Start menu\programs" or set the custom path to "what the hell is going wrong" and doing a search on that and ten export the registry keys which look like they have anythin to do with it and post it back here

[mysterywolf]

is this circular??

[jdharm]

I noticed some things that differ from what I do. I named them below, but I should clarify something. You used the path %winnt%\Profiles.... This will be interpreted by the clients as their own OS root directory and not the server's. I have assumed this was your intent in the paragraphs below. If this wasn't your intent, if you do want the clients to look to the server's All Users profile then you will need to share this directory and then put the UNC path to the share in the Custom Programs Folder setting.

First thing is that you will have to change the path for the various Windows versions, and therefore maintain separate policy files. You have it right for WinNT, but Win2K should read c:\documents and settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs. I don't know the proper path for XP.

Next, I wouldn't (and don't) use the OS variable in the path. I've found the interpretation of that isn't very consistent. So unless you suspect that some of your clients have the OS on a different drive, go ahead and change the variable to c:\winnt\... to ensure that the clients look to their own drives instead of interpreting the variable as the drive of the machine that the policy file was created on, which in this case is the server.

Josh

[i]Sorry folks, I'm an idiot. Moose out front shoulda told ya. [i]