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I have a Windows 2008R2 domain and up until now users had roaming profiles with documents and desktop redirected to a server. We have started using laptops which kind of defeats the reason for a roaming profile for us. I removed the roaming profile about a week after each user gets a laptop with no issue.

This last week I updated GPO’s to redirect the desktop and documents back to the local machine. During the time this occurred I had some users out on a trip. While out those users copied files to their desktops. When they returned and logged in all the files copied to their desktops over their trip vanished but all previous to the trip is still there and all created since are still there.

The trouble is these are photos that users downloaded, then deleted from their camera’s in order to take more images. As you guessed these are teachers and the trips were for the school where we are all located.

I checked the CSC folder in Windows but, found nothing new. Anyone one have any ideas that might help this? I am not totally sure what detail might be needed additional to solve this but, if you have had a similar problem or maybe know what might have happened to these files please help.

2 Spice ups
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You’ve probably already tried this, but just in case - have you tried searching under the C:\Users folders and also running a general search for Pictures across the whole local hard drive (including hidden file locations etc.) to see if they’re in a temporary profile location, for example?

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Thanks for the suggestions. I have done the search and scan for photos and looked in temp folders. Its puzzling to say the least. My next step I guess is to pull out the drive scanning software and look through deleted files to see if I can locate anything. It is always a possibility the user did not copy the photos correctly.

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Control Panel, Sync Center, Offline Files, View Files?

Might have different lists for different profiles, not sure.

Worth a look.

bmb

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Thanks for the idea. I have looked into this and have a better idea of what is happening but, not why it is happening this way. Apparently if the user has a local sync setup and group policy has redirected their documents folders they will conflict. When you remove the group policy and tell the server to place files back to the local profile it will revert to the windows sync setup local which in all cases so far is not as up to date as the folder redirect in GPO. This is resulting in the computers deleting the newer files on the GPO redirect in order to sync up with the local windows sync. If that makes sense.

To resolve the problem I had a local large capacity backup of all users redirected folders. I am having to go back a user at a time and restore all files that get deleted by the local sync. The average seems about a one month loss. While I am able to recover this is a back thing to have happen.

In this case the users setup the local syncs on their own so their is no way to really tell who had the problem until they ask about missing files.

Microsoft should have the system setup so it does not remove files that are newer than what is has in another sync. It should revert to the most recent dates but, it is not doing this and I have no explanation why. Maybe someone else has seen this before?

I must admit I do not know as much about the reasoning behind the setup as I would like. I am cleaning a setup that was put together years ago and now the organization requires significant technology changes which require changes like this.

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Glad you’re able to recover, though it sounds like the trip pics might still be lost.

I started with folders being synced to a shared drive in a workgroup. When I went to a domain environment, the clients were still trying to sync to the old workgroup server for years afterwards. Looked through registry, everywhere trying to end those syncs, never did get all of them to stop until replaced client computers.

I’ve been scared of Sync ever since – seems like the only way to safely change is Windows Easy Transfer to dump files, then give it a go. Hard to do in a large office.

MS should at least dump removed files in the recycle bin, but I guess that they are trying to avoid “Disk Full” errors, which were more of a concern in the days of 40-80GB drives. Still seems to me like you found a bug.

bmb

1 Spice up
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Batman,

Thanks for the reply. Yes the images from the one user were lost but, another on the same trip had a set of photos that he had backup for on a personal removable drive. Since most of what is still lost were all personal images I was not very concerned about devoting resources to recovering them.

I have been plagued by the redirected folders and roaming profiles from a previous IT Director and it has taken the last two years to slowly get rid of many of these issues. I have moved users to laptops now and try my best to remind them they now must physically save or copy files to network drives for backup. The redirected folders soaked up bandwidth because so many users were syncing Itunes accounts with them even though it was against policy to do so.

I did have a backup failure when I first came to this organization where a tech sabotaged the backup then we had a major storm which took out 3 servers. Without going into the long detail the same thing happened. I attempted recovery of files then when a user would login to a computer which had an old copy of their redirected folders they would see all their lost files long enough to be angry when the sync process would deleted them. The same issue newer files on the local profile were deleted and older files from the server replaced them.

I will figure out why this happens one of these days and attempt to find a fix. Right now I guess there is no solution.

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I do want to add I learned something about Sync in Windows 7 at least. Inside the Windows root folder their is a folder named “CSC” this folder contains the local of copy of network sync files when using the Windows sync features. The only trouble is that when a system is on the network, the sync process will for some reason remove the content of all these files leaving only an empty file as sort of a ghost or placeholder if you will. Not sure why but perhaps someone else has experience with this “CSC” folder and its purpose that would explain this.

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WinSvr2008R2 allows you to specify which subfolders of MyDocs get redirected. I guess ITunes caught MS by surprise, but MS did respond by allowing for redirection of MyDocs but not MyPic, MyVids, MyMusic in the later version of WinSvr.

I have tried logging in as a LocalAdmin to try to get to Offline Files, with only partial success – some of those files seem to be in name only. Haven’t known about CSC folder until now.

I’ve had problems with people backing up their files to a folder inside Desktop or MyDocs – they’re on the same disk, but the users didn’t realize that.

We also have a group share with many subfolders, I created an All_Of_Us folder inside the group share, with a folder for each user. Then map a P:Drive to Share\All_Of_Us%Username% and allow people to save their files to the P: Drive.

Need to get another HDD and move P:Drive over there, then people can back up their files to their P:Drive if it makes them feel more secure.

I also tell people to make a folder on the C:Drive – MyStuff or whatever, and put their own stuff in their own folder. Same thing with email, use your own account for your own stuff. Yes we run a pretty loose ship here (who’s the boss to complain?) but people are kept pretty busy, and they have all been reminded that they are using work computers and to use them responsibly. Only problem we’ve had was user who responded to rules by bringing in own computer to use on office lan – he didn’t last long anyways.

I do back up the Staff/%Username%/etc. share, and have been thinking 3 copies of each file, on user computer, Staff share, and Backups (+ weekly offsite) should be enough, but I guess your experience teaches me that I shouldn’t feel so secure about files on user computer and staff share.

I really need to start redirecting profiles (browser bookmark files and outlook.pst ldap synced with gmail) but have been afraid of problems like you’ve encountered. New server coming, I’ll bite the bullet then, hope it doesn’t bite back:-).

bmb

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One of the other issues I was dealing with until last week was a forest level at only 2003 because our primary DC was still 2003. I finally put it on a newer server and was able to raise the functional level so I can use all those nice folder features.

I have the user files with a drive like you mention, then the file server for that drive is actually a VM that gets backed up 3 times a week. In addition I have a file level backup of user files to an external USB.

We replaced the Tape system with Large capacity USB drives so that if I needed to come in an yank the backups in a hurry I just pull all the USB and go. Then our “all of us” drives like you mention we have two of. One for more restricted information and one general. Those are both on the VM and file backup, but they also have a cloud backup that occurs every 15 mins. This way if one of the big bosses is travelling they can access the cloud and get all the files they need.

My past failed backup was on a tape drive and the tech that broke the system was fired for it. He thought he should have been Director when I was hired so that was his protest I think. He did not anticipate the storm that night that made is so much worse.