[Samba] Fwd: Windows 7 problems

[Cain, Marc]

On Nov 9, 2010, at 7:29 AM, henri wrote:

> Hi, 
> 
> I have upgraded to Samba 3.5.6 for Windows 7 Pro compatibility. 
> I am in a test phase to evaluate the behavior of Windows 7 in a Samba PDC
> environment. 
> I have one Samba server as a PDC with tdbsam backend (no LDAP at all), and I
> applied the reg and patch as described in the wiki. 
> 
> I have a couple of questions related to Windows 7 : 
> 
> - opening a domain session on the Win7 client takes a long time. At least 40
> seconds, while there is no delay on XP client. Is it a kown problem ? A bug
> ? What can be done to avoid such a delay ? 

There are a least two timeouts that I've found that can affect domain logons

	-- Roaming profile logon timeout: When a user with a roaming profile attempts to logon to a Samba domain Windows will display the Welcome screen for 30 seconds before enabling the user's desktop. This bug does not affect Active Directory logons. Setting the GPO below to 0 seconds will work around this timeout.

        \\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Set maximum wait time for the network if a user has a roaming user profile or remote home directory
        Set to: 0

	-- Synchronous Logon script timeout: When the local Computer GPO is set to "Run logon scripts synchronously" Windows 7 displays the Welcome screen for 30 seconds before enabling the user's desktop. NOTE: this bug may only be extant in Windows 7 Professional, not Enterprise or may have been addressed in service pack. Creating the following REG_DWORD registry key will work around this bug:

        \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout
        Set to: 00000001

There is also the solid color background bug (again, it may have since been addressed in a service pack): Change the background color to any .jpg image.


> - in smb.conf , the %a value for Windows 7 is "Vista" , right ?

Don't know.  The %a switch hasn't worked in our shop for some time.  Windows 7 will tag the profile folder listed with a .V2 extension or will expect a .V2 extension.

> - NT Default Profile no longer works with Windows 7 . I guess it is normal ,
> but is there a workaround ? 

Default User profiles do work with Windows 7 and Samba.  See the article for Windows 7 default profile details:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289

> - Same question for NT policies : I assume it is normal that windows 7 does
> not support NTconfig.pol files any longer. Nevertheless, is there a way to
> get the same features ? For these kind of functionality (having some control
> of user profiles on Win7 clients) , is AD the only and inescapable solution
> ? 

We create a local group policy that we copy from the server via logon script at logon time.  Works great for bot WinXP and Windows 7.

> For my needs (200 domain users), NT domain was a sufficient solution and
> worked perfectly with XP. I am affraid that with Windows 7, I will have to
> move to something much more and unnecessarily complex :-( . 
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help. 
> 
> Henri 
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