Folder Redirection is not working for Windows 10 (2008/2012 Server Datacenter)

[dude_56013]

Hey all. I'm hoping you might be able to help with this one. I'm reaching out to Reddit, as well, as I'm feeling as though this situation is growing dire.

First off, let me give you a heads up by saying I've scoured the internet looking for a solution, and all I could continue to come up with was references to a WMI issue for Server 2012 Essentials. We do not have that version, and since I still can't fix this bugger of an issue, here I am.

A little brief info for you on our environment. I took over the sysadmin work for a small K-12 last year in August. This system was in place when I took over: we have one physical server machine. It's a Lenovo box with ESX and several VMs. There's a VM for our file server (Server 2012 R2 Datacenter), our App Server (same version), our DC01 (same version), and our DC02 (Server 2008).

I am getting ready to move all staff to Windows 10 on their machines, but I want to get folder redirection working. Please note, I am NOT roaming their profiles, and I am NOT redirecting their AppData. Our network is not sufficient for those two items, and most staff members use their own computers 99% of the time anyways.

The reason for the folder redirection is two-fold. One, so I don't have to manually redirect their user folder paths to the file server, and two, so that if I forget to do that, they aren't saving to their local computer where it doesn't get backed up. A teacher isn't going to dig for their home directory on our file server. They're going to click My Documents and save it there no matter where it's going on the back end.

Anywaysssss. To the issue at hand. I have implemented the GPO for Folder Redirection. And I have test it and found it to be working in Windows 7. However, when logging in to a Windows 10 machine, it logs in with a temporary profile and does not redirect the folders.

Does anyone have any ideas? Even though we don't have 2012 Essentials, I tried to create a WMI filter anyways just for shoots and gigglies, and it didn't do a thing.

So why is this working on Windows 7 machines and not Windows 10?

Thanks for ANY suggestions. I've sunk about 10 hours into this troubleshooting, and I'm currently spinning up a Virtual Box to test it there too. I can't quite figure it out.

BTW, if the solution is to upgrade the 2k8 server to 2012, I can do that, but was hoping to wait until 2016 was out in September-ish.

Note for mods: This could definitely be server administration, but I'm not sure if the issue resides on the server or client side. Move it if you wish!

 

[iPwn]

Anywaysssss. To the issue at hand. I have implemented the GPO for Folder Redirection. And I have test it and found it to be working in Windows 7. However, when logging in to a Windows 10 machine, it logs in with a temporary profile and does not redirect the folders.

I've run into this where the user will log in and be assigned a temporary profile and the fix is just renaming registry values, but the cause is that Windows believes the profile is corrupt when in fact, it's most likely not. However, a bit of digging myself seems to show that the WMI filters (on the GPO) are the only fix because of the OS versioning.

Fix explained here..

 

[dude_56013]

I've run into this where the user will log in and be assigned a temporary profile and the fix is just renaming registry values, but the cause is that Windows believes the profile is corrupt when in fact, it's most likely not. However, a bit of digging myself seems to show that the WMI filters (on the GPO) are the only fix because of the OS versioning.

Fix explained here..

This actually was what I found in my research, but it seems that the OS versioning issue is only the case in 2012 Essentials, not the standard or datacenter versions.

But, I guess I got it figured out. So for anyone who ends up here from Google once the crawlers hit this, it seemed it wasn't a GPO or server issue after all, but was along the lines of iPwn's idea of some type of corruption. Here's my response from Reddit and the link to the thread.

Well, everyone, there's good news (and bad news for anyone who got here from Google in the future).
It appears as though it's a client issue.
In stead of beating my head on the wall for any longer (after working on some of your suggestions tonight), I decided to spin up another W10 client box (the one with issues was the first one...hence why I wanted to get it right before proceeding with rollout).
Turns out, this freaking GPO is working fine. It's a client issue. I don't know why or what is wrong (the first client with issues was a fresh install). But this second client has worked flawlessly.
It must be something stuck in the Registry. On the first client with issues, I've trashed profiles numerous times. Nada. But a fresh login on a new box solved the issue.
So my guess is, as I was setting this GPO, something FUBAR'd in the registry while testing. Not just for one user, but for any users the GPO is applied to.
I continue to see an event ID upon login (on problem machine) that is Event ID 1058. The content is: "The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows attempted to read the file \<MYDOMAIN>\sysvol<MYDOMAIN>\Policies{<SID FOR DEFAULT DOMAIN POLICY>}\gpt.ini from a domain controller and was not successful. Group Olicy settings may not be applied until this even is resolved. This issue may be transient and could be caused by one or more of the following: a) Name Resolution/Network Connectivity to the current domain controller b) File Replication Service Latency (a file created on another domain controller has not replicated to the current domain controller) c) The Distributed File System (DFS) client has been disabled"
The really interesting thing? That file is accessible from the client. If I manually path to that file location (on either DC, the 2008 or 2012), it pops right open. So I have no clue on the cause of this.
But I guess if you're reading this in the future, if it's not too much of a pain, backup the machine (if needed) and re-imaged. Something was clearly botched at some point. The GPO is working just fine on the other machine. My own brain made the INCORRECT correlation that it was a W7 vs W10 issue with my environment, but in reality, if I had another W10 box spun up to use to test to BEGIN with, I would have noticed that it worked just fine. #liveandlearn
Do any of you have any further questions for me that might help someone out who ends up here in the future? I'm happy to divulge anything else.
Thank you SO much for your replies. I know that in the end I just reimaged, but the troubleshooting helped to solidify other things in my brain in the future. So I appreciate it, folks.