New users in NT (Home Drives)

[chrisjg]

Can anyone help.

on a few of my companys win2k machines when we create or copy a new user. we always give the new user a home drive on one of our servers. the path is like this... \\SERVER\Home$\%USERNAME% ... now this doesnt set the sharing and the rights for the folder it creates on the server. which is no problem. the problem that has just come to my attention is that when a user is created on certain images of our 2k machines it puts a folder into the newly created home drive and then another folder with in that. the folders are \New-User\Windows|System.
now this does not seem a big problem but as we have just found out we already have a lot of users with these folders in their home drive. does ANYONE know what is causing this.

Thank...

 

[chrisjg]

Come on ppl on im sure someone out there can help.

 

[JustinLerner]

Are we allowed to guess? I'm guessing something to do with the original imaging.

I don't understand why the clients are creating a different home drive on the client instead of just setting up a standar %userprofile% on the local machine and using the UNC \\server\home$\%username% as the default user and authentication directory. Are you sure that within the User Manager for Domains there were not different directories specified (than current settings) when the original imaging was done for clients? I suppose you are using standard profiles, but I don't see why there would be creation of such a structure on your clients unless something else was done that no longer exists.

 

[JustinLerner]

Hmm, maybe this? Let us know!!

From the MMC snap-in for Group Policies (which displays as the Local Computer Policy) --> User Configuration --> Administrative Templates --> Logon/Logoff --> the object for "Connect home directory to root of the share".

Following is the MS explanation. At bottom is the difference between when disabled or not configured (default) and when enabled.
Looks like its enabled on some 2000/XP workstations and not others.

---

"Restores the definitions of the %HOMESHARE% and %HOMEPATH% environment variables to those used in Windows NT 4.0 and earlier.

If you enable this policy, the system uses the Windows NT 4.0 definitions. If you disable this policy or do not configure it, the system uses the new definitions designed for Windows 2000.

Along with %HOMEDRIVE%, these variables define the home directory of a user profile. The home directory is a persistent mapping of a drive letter on the local computer to a local or remote directory.

By default, in Windows 2000, %HOMESHARE% stores the fully qualified path to the home directory (such as \\server\share\dir1\dir2\homedir). Users can access the home directory and any of its subdirectories from the home drive letter, but they cannot see or access its parent directories. %HOMEPATH% stores a final backslash and is included for compatibility with earlier systems.

On Windows NT 4.0 and earlier, %HOMESHARE% stores only the network share (such as \\server\share). %HOMEPATH% stores the remainder of the fully qualified path to the home directory (such as \dir1\dir2\homedir). As a result, users can access any directory on the home share by using the home directory drive letter.

Tip: To specify a home directory in Windows 2000, in Active Directory Users and Computers or Local Users and Groups, right-click the name of a user account, click Properties, click the Profile tab, and in the "Home folder" section, select the "Connect" option and select a drive letter and home directory.

Example: Drive Z is mapped to \\server\share\dir1\dir2\homedir.

If this policy is disabled or not configured (Windows 2000 behavior):

-- %HOMEDRIVE% = Z: (mapped to \\server\share\dir1\dir2\homedir)

-- %HOMESHARE% = \\server\share\dir1\dir2\homedir

-- %HOMEPATH% = \

If the policy is enabled (Windows NT 4.0 behavior):

-- %HOMEDRIVE% = Z: (mapped to \\server\share)

-- %HOMESHARE% = \\server\share

-- %HOMEPATH% = \dir1\dir2\homedir