How exactly does the home folder mapping in 2003 AD work

active-directoryhome-directorywindows-server-2003windows-server-2003-r2

I'm trying to troubleshoot an issue with a user's My Documents not being mapped to a network location as it should be. Most of the user have their AD account set to have H as their home folder and it's mapped to a network location. This works fine for everyone except a single user who's been here a long time and his My Documents keeps getting uploaded with his roaming profile to the server. He has a few hundred megs in here and although he only uses one machine this is obviously not desirable. I've searched around HKEY_CURRENT_USER and compared it with a working user but it all seems fine and I can't see it using a GPO.

My question is, what exactly does Server 2003 do to set up this folder and how is the setting passed to the machine?

Thanks.

Best Answer

There is a quite impressive guide which can be found here. Please check the following:

  • Whether the user already have a healthy local profile. A profile which is not corrupt.
  • User's profile is configured as a roaming profile. Please check the profile properties in the AD DS user management console. You should use a GPO or Extensions in order to achieve this with best results.
  • How to prevent folders from roaming with a profile in Windows Server 2003: Read the KB from here.
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