Remove old server from offline synch?

[mrsh]

Hi all

There are 500+ profiles and redirected My Docs on serverA. We need to move all profiles and redirected My Docs to serverB. We are using the Microsoft CSCCMD.exe utility to manipulate the local CSC folder with the following logon script:-

\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /moveshare:\\serverA\mydocs$ \\serverB\mydocs$
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /disconnect:\\serverA\mydocs$
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /delete:\\serverA\mydocs$ /recurse2

We're having real trouble getting consistency from the script, some machines process fine but others still insist on synch'ing the serverA on logon and logoff which will cause a real headache if hundreds of users report "failed to connect to serverA" messages.

We've also tried csccmd.exe /UNPIN2 command with similar results. All machines are XP SP3.

Any ideas please?

Thanks
Scott

[jeremym]

You might want to try to configure the GPO
(test this first... test this first.. test this first !!)
to:

"Redirect to the local userprofile location"

Then let it settle in..

-THEN-

Give another GPO which points toward the second server.

Except.. this time.. DONT MAKE IT A SERVER.

Make it a DFS share so this doesn't happen again in the future. :-)

[mrsh]

Hi Jeremy, thanks for your reply. I personally would like to embrace DFS shares but our server team tells us DFS cannot handle more than 250 or so concurrent connections and we have 1800+ users so they advice not to use DFS at all. They install NetApp filers a long time ago as a kind of alternative to DFS.

[mrsh]

Hi David, thanks for your reply.
1. It has been suggested elsewhere that the the XP SP3 version of fdeploy.dll creates misleading errors in Event Log and that are remedied by reverting to the XP SP2 version of fdeploy.dll. Does this tally with the "known issue" you allude to? Are there any other negative side-effects of fdeploy.dll we need to be aware of? I have tried to replace fdeploy.dll with the XP SP2 version for testing purposes but the XP SP3 version persistently restores itself, so I assume fdeploy.dll is a protected Windows file safeguarded by the System File Checker (SFC)?

2. “Move the contents of My Documents to the new location" is enabled on the old and new GPO. You advise to disable this so it “will set the path". What do you mean please? Must we disable this option to migrate people’s MyDocs from the old server to the new server?

3. We have since managed to get more consistent results and remove the old server synch'ing altogether during logon and logoff with the following approach:-
3.1 Run the following Logon script at every logon:-
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /moveshare:\\serverA\mydocs$ \\serverB\mydocs$
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /unpin2:\\serverA\mydocs$ /user /recurse2
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /delete:\\serverA\mydocs$ /recurse2
3.2 Run the following Logoff script at every logoff:-
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /unpin2:\\serverA\mydocs$ /user /recurse2
\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /delete:\\serverA\mydocs$ /recurse2

We had to run both of these Logon and Logoff scripts everytime because users ‘roaming’ to different laptops/desktops were seeing the old server reappear, I assume because each local CSC caches the old server until ‘csccmd.exe /moveshare’ updates it to the new server.
We are piping the results for each user's logon and logoff scripts to a txt file for analytical purposes. Even though all appears well we are finding inconsistent results within these logfiles. For example, one machine records no errors such as:-

---------------------------------------------
C:\WINDOWS>\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /moveshare:\\serverA\mydocs$ \\serverB\mydocs$
The command completed successfully.
C:\WINDOWS>\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /unpin2:\\serverA\mydocs$ /user /recurse2
Unpinning "\\serverA\mydocs$" -> SUCCESS (PinCount = 0, HintFlags = 0x0)
The command completed successfully.
C:\WINDOWS>\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /delete:\\serverA\mydocs$ /recurse2
Deleting "\\serverA\mydocs$" -> SUCCESS
The command completed successfully.
---------------------------------------------

…while another machine reports errors have occurred even though the old server is no longer synch’ing, such as:-

---------------------------------------------
C:\WINDOWS>\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /moveshare:\\serverA\mydocs$ \\serverB\mydocs$
The command completed successfully.
C:\WINDOWS>\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /unpin2:\\serverA\mydocs$ /user /recurse2
Unpinning "\\serverA\mydocs$" -> ERROR 1
System error 1 has occurred.
Incorrect function.
C:\WINDOWS>\\domain.com\NETLOGON\csccmd.exe /delete:\\serverA\mydocs$ /recurse2
Deleting "\\serverA\mydocs$" -> ERROR 5
System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.
--------------------------------------------

… and those machines that were reporting no errors previously have been showing errors at a later date and vice versa, so we have a mixed bag of random errors, despite the old server no longer synch'ing on any of these machines. “Why worry then?” you ask. Well, we need to understand the significance of these errors in case we hit problems further down the line. For example, 2 of the 8 testers have already lost the contents of their MyDocs folder but managed to manually restore them from a previous date. But how and why did this happen? We cannot roll out this solution to the wider audience until these issues are understood and resolved. We couldn’t find anything useful in the Event Logs or userenv.log file.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Scott