Windows XP Machines not receiving Group Policies

[wtburnette]

We have several machines in our company that for some reason are no longer receiving certain applications delivered via group policy. These are machine policies, not user policies. Other, like computers get the application pieces via policy just fine, but certain machines don't and I'm unable to determine why. I'm a desktop support tech, not a network tech, so I really don't know much about policies, AD and such. My boss in his infinite wisdom decided it would be a good "learning experience" for me though...

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Jay_2]

are they set locally or via Active Directory?

Are the system connecting to the server ok? check your DHCP etc to see if there are any problems

 

[MorfiusX]

Try removing them from the domain, reboot, delet the computer object in AD, add them back to the domain, reboot, move the new computer object to the correct OU, run "gpupdate /force", then reboot again.

 

[Jay_2]

Try removing them from the domain, reboot, delet the computer object in AD, add them back to the domain, reboot, move the new computer object to the correct OU, run "gpupdate /force", then reboot again.

good advice.

 

[Farva]

Well, it would seem like those machine are not part of the AD computer tree. That is the first thing that comes to mind.

 

[wtburnette]

Thanks for the replies thus far. Yes, I've done all that. I apologize for not saying as much earlier. We have:

• 
  Moved from the OU that gets the policies and put into an OU that gets none

• Removed from the domain and AD entirely and added back

• Reimaged via ghost

• Rebuilt from scratch

In none of those cases did the troubleshooting fix the problem. Oddly enough, there are only about 12 or so computers out of over 200 that are effected. Nothing in common between the computers otherwise. Oh and they're able to get on the network just fine. If we install the stuff manually, everything works perfectly. The problem is this is a random problem that pops up from time to time on other systems as well and we update the code often enough that it's problematic when we have to manually install things.

 

[da sponge]

Make sure network determination is correct. I've seen similar behavior before and the last-received DNS key was empty. Manually editing with the correct domain name (yadda.local) corrected the problem.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0504.mspx

When a computer running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP receives a Group Policy update, it records the connection-specific DNS suffix of the connection over which the Group Policy update was received in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy\History\NetworkName registry entry. This entry is known as the last-received Group Policy update DNS name.

 

[MorfiusX]

How did you load the machines? Did you use an imaging program like Ghost? If so, did you make sure to SysPrep your image?

 

[MorfiusX]

Also, have you checked the event log for errors or warnings?

 

[wtburnette]

Make sure network determination is correct. I've seen similar behavior before and the last-received DNS key was empty. Manually editing with the correct domain name (yadda.local) corrected the problem.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/cableguy/cg0504.mspx

I'll have to check this to see if it could be the issue.

How did you load the machines? Did you use an imaging program like Ghost? If so, did you make sure to SysPrep your image?

Yes, used ghost and did Sysprep. Also tried reinstalling windows from scratch with no better luck.

Also, have you checked the event log for errors or warnings?

Yes, nothing there that seemed to help. Also enabled verbose logging and was checking the usernev.log or whatever but can't seem to make heads or tails out of it...