Windows 7: adding windows 7 to 2003 domain

Hi

I am thinking to enroll windows 7 on all the machines in our network so i bought a copy of windows 7 pro for testing and installed it and joined it to the domain and i logged on with my user account with no problem and also can get emails from exchange through outlook with no problem. everything seems ok BUT

the problem is, few domain policies don't work. for example:
loggin script to map network drives doesn't work

an other IT dude told me that i would need to upgrade the AD schema on my DC and Exchange servers to server 2008.

how accurate is that and what do you think?
thank you

W

I feel this is quite important for you to get right, and so i would suggest you go straight to Microsoft and get their support.

If anyone has this level of expertise, pls suggest but like i said, best to get your answer from Microsoft.

and also when i delete files or icons from the desktop, they appear the next time i log on. so it's not synching with the profile.v2 on the server.

any help is very appreciated.
thanks
w

You could put your drive mapping scripts in \\domain.tld\SYSVOL\domain.tld\scripts

Then in your Active Directory Users and Computers, select your user account and on the Profile tab set the "Logon Script" to the name of the script (no need to specify the path).

The existing group policies should work (just ensure your Active Directory domain functional level is 2003), you're only missing out on the new group policy features which first popped up in Server 2008 and Vista which can also be found in Windows 7, however you can still take advantage of these new features by installing RSAT to a Vista/7 client machine.

Have you ensured your Windows 7 computer is in the correct OU with the appropriate group policy you were expecting to be applied?

Link to RSAT:
32bit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
64bit: Download details: Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems

Further reading: Group Policy Team Blog : Windows 7 - Do I need to change my Active Directory for new Group Policy features?

Hope this helps

Thanks DC187, the logon script is a good solution to map the drives but then i'll have to edit this on every user account which will take a lot of time.

the domain functional level is 2003 and yes the client machine is in the right OU and the user account im using is in the right OU too.

im still testing windows 7 in my domain and the only issue i have now is the group policy which most of them work so i guess no need for changing the AD schema.

thanks

If the logon script method is something you wish to follow up you can use Active Directory command line tools to modify multiple user accounts at once.
Here's an example:

dsquery user "ou=Users,dc=domain,dc=com" -name * | dsmod user -loscr <logon script>

That will fetch all the users from a specified Organization Unit and modify the Logon script attribute for each one.

Probs best to test on a test OU with a dummy user before applying to your existing users.

Shout if you need anything else.

thanks DC187 i will definitely try this.

DC i tried it but came up with error, pls check below:

dsquery user "ou=test,dc=mydomain,dc=local" -name * | dsmod user -loscr longon.bat
dsquery failed:A referral was returned from the server.
type dsquery /? for help.dsmod failed:`Target object for this command is missing.
type dsmod /? for help.

on the domain part, i tried local and com

where did i go wrong?

also regarding the RSAT, i don't have server 2008 yet, does it still works?

Hmm interesting the syntax looks correct I just did the same thing to ensure I didn't give you a mistyped command.

The only way I could replicate your issue is by specifying an incorrect domain name.

Ensure that's correct (check the name at the top of the tree in AD Users and Computers), heres some examples:

For a .local domain
ou=test,dc=mydomain,dc=local

For a .com domain
ou=test,dc=mydomain,dc=com

For a .co.uk domain
ou=test,dc=mydomain,dc=co,dc=uk

Hope that helps.