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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Desktop Syncronisation With Mac And Xp Login

psyman - Apr 6, 2005 - 11:45 am

I have OSX Server 10.3.8 running as a primary domain controller serving 22 emacs (10.3.8) and about the same amount of Windows XP clients.

When I log in a client on windows XP the desktop does not contain the folders that were created when the client was logged in on the mac even though they are in the desktop folder on the mounted home directory. Is there any settings that will make this possible?

Also if I create a user account and then move the users old files to the desktop and documents folder, then log in for the first time using XP, it deletes all of the desktop and documents contents.

I have pointed profiles in WGM to the users home folder with exactly the same path as the one to the home folder and assigned X as the drive.

if I try pointing the profiles anywhere else I get an error on login to say that the profiles folder can not be found.

Any tips, as the manual does not really cover windows clients very well.

macjock - Apr 7, 2005 - 9:02 pm

Hi,
For windows users you really need to have a seperate profile directory shared out as well as the home folder.
Pointing them to the same share doesn't sound like a great idea. I think you'll need to address this before you move on.

With regard to the windows home folder, can you confirm the same home folder share is being mounted on both the Mac and also being mapped on the XP machine.. It doesn't sound like it is.
How are you mounting the home folder on the Macs? Are you using SMB or AFP and do you have localhomes enabled or disabled (i.e. is the home folder simply mounted as a desktop mount).

kind regards,

dave
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psyman - Apr 12, 2005 - 5:54 am

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply. Been awaqy for a few days so sorry for the delay. I am going to have a look at creating a seperate profile folder on the server and see if splitting the 2 helps at all although there seems to be no way of doing this automatically for 200 staff and students.

The windows machines are mapping the same folder for the home directory as the Macs and the macs are using an AFP automount as their home folder.

The problem seems to be that when you first log into an XP machine using the account it automatically sets up a desktop folder which over writes the existing mac one including all files that may have been there.

The only solution I can see is to have every new account log in and out of both mac and PC BEFORE using the accounts, however this is completely impractical.

I think I need to sort the profile problem out first then move on to the desktop shinanigans after, followed by why the batch file won't run on any of the windows PC's at login even though I have it in the netlogon folder and have not used a path.

Phew, Lets hope windows support is a little more user friendly in Tiger.

OR is there any additions to the "createhomedir" command that would include the windows stuff as well, as the button/save method in WGM is not reliable

Simon

psyman - Apr 19, 2005 - 5:35 am

Seperate profile folder within the home users folder did the trick although I had to write a shell script to make and chown a windows folder in every users home folder called windows, then manually add the details to WGM. Lets hope that they incluse a little more windows support in Tiger.

Thanks for your help

Simon