Gpo drive mapping best practice. Templates and Security Policy.
Gpo drive mapping best practice I have a GPO that maps network drives based on the security group(s) the user belongs to using item level targeting. Keeping your GPO's separate like that is good, nothing worse than a big one with item level targeting. I’ve only found a few discussions about this. No domain contrrollers are 2008. ’ I’ve never found a good answer as to why not. However, I have searched high and low and have not been able to find any 1) I have a single GPO that maps 3 different drives. another issue I've seen is when a non domain-joined machine is finally joined, and Actually in the older days the gp drive maps only processed at the time of login and so replace was the best/most consistent option for general use case. via a VBS script)--or--At user logon and during periodic background refresh of GP when using a Group Policy Preference item; Unless your IT department is willing to remove you from their drive mapping policy, you cannot prevent the drives from being mapped. Log in. From your Server Dashboard open the Group Policy Managemen Mapping Drives with Group Policy has the following advantages: It’s much easier than logon scripts. Is the “order” the priority of the mapping, ie something with order 1 overrides something with order 5? Or is order the order Drives mapped by Group Policy will either be created: At user logon only (e. 1 Spice up. If a GPO implements Group Policy Preferences Drive Mappings and Registry policy, and you make a change Drive Maps – GPO: First thing to note – Almost all Preferences in GPOs are using the “Update” action: This should make the GPO to reapply the same options for this particular mapping. We have a mixed environment Win 7 pro and XP, about 60 PC’s in two locations, one domain, server 2003 active directory. Pinterest. On a per-request basis, I would like to develop a user GPO to satisfy the odd user who 4. But there is a reason why many IT guys still use scripting languages like Kixtart or modern ones like Powershell. Than connects the VPN and cannot use mapped drives. Spiceworks Community GPO Drive mapping. 8: 89: June 26 With the current state of closure and quarantines I am cleaning up my environment’s GPOs because I’m seeing several separate policies that map different drives. Now, if you were trying to map the drive from a non domain computer that were hosted on a domain computer you'd habe a problem because the gpo wouldn't work. What we have found, is that if the maps are deleted, and a gpupdate /force is run, the maps do not reappear. Highly recommend Semicolon’s post as the best answer. In addition to the point above it is generally best practice to assign mapped drives high letter drive letters such as x and z or more toward the end of the alphabet. Configure the drive mapping settings, including drive letter and UNC path for each drive. You can use item level targeting inside each network drive setting to apply to specific security groups. Two of them are applied at the OU level; meaning if the USER is part of the OU they get the drive. Gpresult - GPO does not fail but also does not show up in the applicable GPOs list. When we created the master image, the install of the app along with the mapping of 3. Here is a step-by-step guide for Group Policy drive mapping: Step #1. What if a new GPO with new drive maps to the same letters is linked and the old one unlinked? because of the application crash behavior, mentioned right at the top of the comments, as the drive mapping is deleted and re-created. That way, we don't have those problems. The windows shares map with this We dont have a single logon script there now - drive mappings, desktop shortcuts, printers, and more are all done through GPO based on which groups the user is a member of The only caveat is that if the workstations are Is there a downfall to using Replace instead of Update when drive mapping via GPO, I currently have a mix of Update and Replace using item level targeting with success, but on some computers the users are getting the drive Eventually ran out of letters to use for mappings. ;) Instructions: https: Regular 'ol GPO drive mappings, without the "reconnect" flag of course. Maybe even easier. You can only point to a UNC path via a shortcut, a Mapped Drive, or a Internet link. Reply reply Using Powershell, this will disconnect any drive mapping matching \server\share The drive will remain visible but inaccessible in We have a drive map GPO that applies to our users container, so that drive maps are created on any machine the user logs into. What I want (best case): Drive Mappings; Power Settings; Bitlocker; Applocker; Firewall rules; and so on. I know that printers can be mapped via logon scripting, and that drives can be mapped via GPO. Here are some settings that can Hello all, I’d been under the impression that having all printers in one GPO under Preferences>Control Panel Settings>Printers, and using item-level targetting was the best way to do so, but now I’m wondering if that’s not the case. I am running into errors with It's part of the Point and Print Restrictions GPO - "Users can only Point and Print to these servers". We are in the process of a domain migration and at the moment everyone just gets mapped the “G Drive” Again, proper grouping of policy areas in GPOs comes into play. local), but the mapped drive showed up for everyone. The script would need to reference the drive letter, the mapped drive location, and a target group. It is working great with some of them but not mapping others. I was able to run a rsop. The first time you fire up the GPMC in Windows 7 and edit a Group Policy Object (GPO), you probably notice a new section under both Computer Does adding a printer driver to a server and sharing it out via GPO result in more problems (more printer disconnects, slow print times) than locally installing the full printer driver package on each PC one at a time? I am of the opinion that adding it via GPO is the logical best choice as you only have to do it once for the whole domain. I set my drive map GPO at the top Unless there is a program that absolutely relies on drive mapping i do the following: -Enable access based enumeration. There you can add your drive mappings. Daniel Adeniji Reply The usgcb for win 7 will catch a lot of basic best practice. Shop. Travels out of state, has access to public wi-fi. Home Blog Group Policy Preferences best practices. Just give it the name of the GPO(s) that it should analyze, then it'll parse through each GPO looking under User Configuration\Preferences\Windows Settings\Drive Mappings for any mapped drives (that's how this customer has mapped their drives, so that bit might need to change if you map your drives Hi, I’m setting up a new server on which I am mapping drives using GPP. The beauty of DFS is that if you change servers in the future (buy a new I am working at a client who some previous tech setup a mapped drive script and pushed it out via the default domain policy -->Computer Configuration -->Windows Settings → Scripts -->Startup The problem is that does not exist anymore in the policy but it is still being push out and created 2 mapped drives with Red X’s. The GPO containing the preference item is typically linked to higher containers in Active Directory, such as a the domain or a parent Using group policy is the ideal method of mapping network drives. November 1, 2023 at 10:54 pm. Network drive mapping lets you easily access files and folders Once setup, what is the best practice to mapping the drives via GPO? Is there a highly recommended guide out there? As for mapping drives via GPO, read up on item level targeting. Related topics Topic Replies Views Activity; GPO Drive mapping - Item level targeting. Many other references 10 OneDrive GPO Best Practices. I still use login script for global activities like launching pop up notifications via vbs script, mapping global drive letters that everyone I have an old GPO that runs a logon script to map users to their agency shared drive. To do this, create a new ‘IT Step 1: What is the unique factor you need in order to map drives for certain people? Find out what criteria you need to map your drives By user group membership; By user Can someone explain best practice for using GPO to map drives? I am currently running scripts with net use and finally going to be moving into the GPO state for this. 1 GPO for everyone. The Good ole Group Policy Microsoft’s nicest tool that simply doesn’t work well. In Drive Maps, right-click in the center of the screen and select New > Mapped Drive. when implementing DFS, you need to update all references. (GPMC) for a while. 🔗💻 7. With GPO do I need to create a new GPO for each or can I put permissions on each drive? I am building this under User Even though we store more and more data in the cloud, drive mapping is still a common practice these days. Watch. If the drive mapping does not exist, then the Update action creates a new drive mapping. If I run rsop I can’t find the drive mapping GPO in the left pane anywhere, but if I view user configuration properties it shows up in the GPO list as applied. To drive mapping , In Group Policy Preferences I will target to the ACL groups to map drives. Reply reply Drive mappings GPO stores the mappings in a XML file so microsoft native powershell commands might not offer what you want/need. Suppose, you have a file server where shared folders of different departments are stored. Every other drive from the same policy maps just fine. All drive mapping preferences are set to Replace You can map drives through a GPO and apply it to the group your users live in, just make sure to put it under user configuration. 13. How can I manage the GPO here? Now I have tested it. You make a change to GPO A’s Security Policy. There may be a third party powershell module or a combination of tools but there are times when I Hi, I use GPO's for drive mapping using security groups. Since I am modifying when a user logs into a computer, I did the following: So if I configure this delete preference and do so to only run once, can I leave the applicable drive mapping set to “Update” or would it need to be changed to “Create. If you need to map some network drives via GPO, create one single policy for drive mappings. Just moved to GPO mapping of drives and printers and love it. I got a simple new network drive map config set up in the Default Domain Policy: Letter: P Location: \\server\\share (share access confirmed ok) Reconnect: Enabled label as: NewShare Use first available: Disabled Hide/show this drive: Show Hide/show all drives: No change A few other network drive configs already exist within the same policy, all working fine. You don’t need a completely separate GPO for a single drive mapping for a single user - You can use a GPO to put them on Internet explorer or on a folder on the local computers, or the desktop as mention. Scenario: User works on laptop only, has network drives mapped through a logon. All other settings remain as configured on the mapped drive. You use the word 'seems°. Cool! Just to For this application to function, the virtual desktops absolutely need to map a network drive. Using it allows you to have one single GPO that maps every drive in the organization. We just got a Synology Rackstation and I’m trying to map the shares on it as drives through GPO. The only way to get the mappings updated was to disconnect all the I have read some articles that claim that using the Active Directory user home directory attribute to automatically map the home drive is a legacy method, deprecated, or not recommended. I’ve just completed a project to take all this off GPO and I don't know if it's best practice or whatever but what we tend to do is create a GPO named "Network Drives" which is configured to map all network drives based on whether the user is a member of a security group (via item-level targeting). Apart from the ability to configure This GPO applies to: any/all computers The overall purpose of the GPO is to support some security initiative. We’re doing all our drive mapping via Group Policy Preferences and using Item Level Targeting for some of the drive maps only needed by specific teams. The mappings are all part of the GPO so you can see which drive letters are in use for various users. I also did a folder redirect for documents and desktop and both of those are working. Delete Action The Delete action will give you a red ‘X’. The specific initiative is to ensure all computers are configured for certificate enrollment using the PKI. The issue has come that since they are interns the do not have permanent computers, meaning they are moving around. So if it's set to Create it will delete the old Good morning all, I’m pretty new to Group Policy stuffs so I’m not sure if what we would like to be able to do is possible. e. Before long you end up with 200 GPO’s just for workstations. When I go to map the drive using group policy, no matter what option I select it will not give me the option to enter the “Connect Stick it at the top of your drive map GPO preferences and remap afterwards, and then phase it out when you're done. . Similar thing can easily happen in Intune. Used properly you can even use the same drive with different targets for After editing the location of one of these options, that single drive no longer maps. The mapped drive action is currenly set to "Update". Then you need to configure the settings for the new mapped drive. Edit Your GPOs Settings. Map the drive via GPO the same way you'd map the drive of it was hosted on a domain computer. Mildred Murillo. Here are the options on the General tab: Action — Select an action that will be performed on the In my experience, the GPOs that tent to slow logons down the most are the printer mappings but YMMV. So my question is, what is the best practice for network drive mapping? Use 'Replace' and suffer from the force close of explorer every 90 minutes, or use 'Update' and having to manually update every user's shares if there's a change in drive letters? All the drive maps were originally set to "Update" in a User GPO. What would be a good way to gather data on network drives that periodically disconnect for users? We have a gpo that maps the drives but the setting is set to "replace" instead of "update" when it runs. Want to change the All good!. -Create one overall shared folder (push to everyones' desktop via GPO) Everything is managed by group Producing a Group Policy Preference item to create public drive mappings is simple. Today. So I deleted that GPO and created a new one under a new MIS OU, which linked it to this OU If CIFS was enable previously, after the upgrade to 20H2 it will be disabled again, as that is Microsoft's best practice for this security hole. So, Map drives are out of the question then shortcuts on a folder or desktop are your only options using Windows explorer. We setup a new server and moved the contents of a share from the old server to the new one. See this Automating Group Policy Preferences Drive Mapping with PowerShell “Data is the key”: Twilio’s Head This will be a user GPO so you’ll want to link it to the OU that contains your user accounts. Can this be done? Any assisting pointing in the right direction is appreciated. I can't say I've noticed any speed issues with logins. Permissions all are fine since the rest of the network drives map successfully and the file share is accessible Step #5. GPO linked to an OU is definitely the way to go instead of login scripts. TechNet; Products; IT Resources; Downloads; Training; Support In our example of configuring drive mapping, only users in the Product Managers group would receive the mapping. These days since Windows 8 it's been moved to process during a session which literally deletes GPO all the way for us. I thought of doing a ping -t to the gateway and writing to a mapped network drive txt folder, but even then there are no timestamps within the When moving data to a new file structure, e. We have multiple locations in town all on a single domain. Wrote up a script that adds the network drive using the authenticated user and then creates a hkcu reg key to name the mapped drive instead of displaying the default network path. If you go to Group Policy Management and create the GPO and then edit it and do User Config > Prefs > Windows Settings > Drive Maps. What are other people using as a Best Practice? Mapped Drives, something else? Test to see if the issue is related to your drive mappings. On the domain controller, open the Group Policy This combination allows a single drive to be mapped for the entire company with no complex thinking about where to place scripts or GPOs. Hi All, I've got a GPO for Mapped Drives - they're all marked as "Update" how ever every 90 minutes with Windows 11 it disconnects the network drive and reconnects it, this isnt a quick "1 second user wont notice" this is atleast 10 seconds which causes it to completely drop off the users PC and then reconnect, some applications report that it's gone and even Windows In the proper GPO (where your users are located) navigate to User Configuration>Preferences>Windows Settings>Drive Maps to create a new drive mapping. Navigate to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Drive Maps. apathetic_admin • Mix and match right now. MS16-072: Security update for Group Policy: June 14, 2016 - Microsoft Support. One of them is Like I said, if you are just mapping drives, then a gpo is best. This means I have to map the drive, silently and automatically, using non-domain creds different from what domain users are using In case you needed some extra information on Group Policy drive mapping, we've prepared a special guide just for you. 9 Spice ups. To reduce risk, it is a Mapping directly to FQDN of the server directly as opposed to DFS name space made no difference Enabling/disabling the drive map reconnect option and "run in logged-on user's context" Changing the link order of the policies so that the Initially I made the GPO amongst the others in the forest (under . Windows. I have multiple shared folders that equal drive letters. 7. Greetings all, I have been tasked with re-organizing our file server at work. The path is correct and directly copying/pasting it into explorer takes you straight there. Now that I’ve removed all of the bloat, I’d like to rename the remaining GPOs in some consistent way so as to better reflect what the GPO is actually doing and/or what it needs to be applied to. Best way to handle creation of Drive Mapping settings via Intune? General Question Hi everyone, HR Drive Mapping Configuration Profile - Applied to HR Azure AD Group - Maps \\server1\HR\ to Z: We have about 20 OU that all have different GPO to do drive mapping based on groups. We start by configuring the drive map preference item by choosing the I’m trying to map a network drive hosted on a standalone (non-domain) system via GPO. You would setup a new GPO that would have the login script to map the Q drive, and have security filter apply to the Billing_security_group, so they will be the only ones that get the Q Drive Mappings; However, keep in mind that loading many small GPOs can require more time and processing at logon than having a few GPOs that each have more settings. Oddly enough if lets say I have a document or spreadsheet open and I do “save as” all the drives show up and are Mapping network drives is one of the most common jobs for a network administrator. I used to do this with batch files by putting %USERNAME% at the end of the net use command EG net use f: \\sever\\users%USERNAME% this command would auto create When I log into client systems (Windows 7) the drives do not map. Figure 4. Thank you. Create will only create the mapping if no existing drive is Verifed GPO maps are set to update instead of replace. You can automate a lot via scripts and often do it quicker than via gui - if you do the same things all the time. So far working great off off 2003 servers, 2008 servers, XP/7 workstations. GPO Settings Best Practices. When I was using scripts to map a single drive with this same GPO in the same location (under our Department’s OU) I could log on all over the place and the drive would map. Best practice is to create new policies and place them in those locations if you really need something that high up in the tree to push settings. First thing : DFS is not a tool for mapping shares, it's a tool for displaying shares. OneDrive is a cloud storage service from Microsoft that allows users to store, sync, and share files. Guys I need some help using GPO to map a network drive that uses different credentials. Data references are typically found in GPO‘s with settings for drive mapping and Software Distribution. OneDrive is a great tool for businesses, but there are some best practices to follow when configuring it with Group Policy Objects. When users complain it is usually something I can solve with a hard drive I’m in the middle of cleaning up AD/GPOs after years of only basic maintenance. One suggests using version numbers to more 3 - I will use Item-level Targeting for drive mapping. bobbeatty (Bob Beatty) November 13, 2012, 4:06pm 8. This is a how to guide on how to map network drives and pushing it out to multiple machines via Group Policy Step 1: Ensure the network drive/folder you wish to map is Can someone explain best practice for using GPO to map drives? I am currently running scripts with net use and finally going to be moving into the GPO state for this. So we went from \\server-share\share to Windows 10 Top Contributors: neilpzz - Ramesh Srinivasan - Reza Ameri . This should run the delete drive Scenario: Domain with windows 7 laptops Fileserver Users set certain folders to available offline Client has 1 HQ and 1 branch office, connected with a site to site VPN tunnel. Using DFS(R) coupled with RBAC, you have a secure, a home drive for the users \filesrv\homedrive%username% and a department drive \filesrv\staff Make every department a sub folder under \staff set your permissions, and enable access based enumeration to hide folders users don't have access to. Then, right-click in the white space, and select Here is how we map drives: We enable a computer level policy under Admin Templates -> System -> Group Policy. This GPO appears to work for everyone (that I know of) except one person. Any help is gratefully appreciated Since the drive mapping GPO previously existed with the same drive letter you might This scenario guide explains how to use TroubleShootingScript (TSS) to collect data to troubleshoot an issue in which a Group Policy Object (GPO) to map a network drive doesn't apply as expected. Branch office has 1 Use a Group Policy Preference to deoloy a drive mapping based upon a security group or any number of conditions. Lets say , any user moved from the IT department to the HR department. Rolling back to older technology is not a way to go through life; you’ll end up using batch files and vbscripts for the rest of eternity. This worked perfectly. Windows 10 Top Contributors: In my environment, I think GPO deployment is the best fit. Group settings together that make sense like OS hardening. g. G. We then push out in Group Policy Preferences as a user setting, we set the mode to REPLACE and then set the RUN IN USER'S SECURITY CONTEXT. Explore. Users are logging in with domain creds to their workstations but the creds necessary to access the share are local-only to the server hosting the files. Also I want to do the drive mapping for each department. Shared out a Users folder already then I want the GPO to auto create a user folder in the shared out Users folder. I have other drives that are Item Level targeted by Group. The want all users to have their files on the server with no one else seeing any of their files except their manager. The When using the drive mapping preferences extension, this makes group policy processing run synchronously versus async, but remember that even if you set the "always wait for network" policy to force the system to not process policy until a network connection is available, it's waiting for any connectivity on that adapter, not necessarily validating that there's a functional domain Want to use GPO to auto create a user own personal drive share on the server. Logon scripts for driving mappings can as well. Maybe it's time to put a stopwatch on both methods in your environment and see how much difference there is. Mapping Drives via Group Policy login script (2008 domain with Windows 7 & 8 clients) Why is it considered best practice to partition columnstore tables? Does building the Joja warehouse lock me out of any events/achievements (besides Designing a GPO with Performance In Mind •The GP Engine does not keep per-CSE version information –Why does this matter? •Example: GPO A implements both Admin. What are the CRUD settings for mapping the Drives in the GPO? If they are set to Create you should change them to Update. I'm trying to discern the best method to map network drives and shared printers our staff. I have mine as follows: This one is driving a couple or our users (and their helpdesk staff) nuts. Set HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\PointAndPrint\TrustedServers to DWORD 1 and then populate Hello everyone, I would like to create a PowerShell script to automate the process of multiple Mapped Drive creation in Group Policy. In most cases, I would answer with a resounding NO. Then apply the network drive policy to your The drive map preference items contained in the GPO inherits the scope of the GPO; leaving us to simply configure the preference item and link the GPO. Network drive map through GPO not working on Windows 2012 (Neither via logon script nor drive maps) 1. I have created a GPO like Will deleting a GPO remove whatever settings are being enforced upon my client computers? I have a bunch created for things like screen saver lock outs and drive maps, and I was wondering if there is a best practice to follow when removing GPOs you don't want anymore, or What would be the best way to make sure and enforce \nas01\data and have it working and mapped for users? Quite a basic environment setup so no other clashing GPOs. Hello I can’t seem to figure out a way to map a network drive by way of GPO to work with a vpn connection. I use the REPLACE option (just in case they have something mapped already) with all drives. Published Dec 4, 2022. bustedchromebook (Humble Tyrant) March 3, 2016, 11:14pm Learn how to safely and effectively implement GPO drive mapping with expert tips and best practices. 5) I have it filtered to an AD group in "Security Filtering". We then used AD groups to assign permissions. , not using the storage account key), without requiring the end user to manually authenticate to AzureAD every time they log on? Finally, if someone has a suggestion for a best practice on using GPO to map an Azure file share, I'd Because the drive mapping is recreated using this option, it results in the drive momentarily going offline, which, in my case, generally leads to users who are using programs reliant on databases stored on mapped drives having to go through a lengthy database re-sync process, at best, or database corruption issues, at worst. Then, right-click the GPO and select Edit. For our example, we'll call it "Map HR Share" 5. active-directory-gpo, question. When trying to map the shares through GPO on an 08r2 box, it is not mapping. The way I’ve done it is to create them in GPO and do some filtering based on the security group the user belongs to. That will establish if your issue is with the drive mappings. I never had to map another drive again after that. 8. My colleague Nicola Suter has a wonderful solution which allows uploading existing GPOs and creating PowerShell scripts which can be deployed via a Scripts How existing map network drive permission gonna work with DFS shares. Group Policy drive mappings are robust, flexible, dynamic, documented, capable, and come with native built-in logging (if you choose to The main work of this script is a function called MapDrives that uses the GPAE get-sdmgpobject cmdlet to create the new drive mapping and attach a security group-based item-level target to each mapping. Create a DELETE drive mapping to delete the drive letter Y: (You have to move this rule to the top of the list). That is Can you reliably map a drive to an Azure storage account file share, using GPO and the user credentials (i. (boo!) I would think the GPO would be active for all machines in the domain, no matter what I log into. Reply reply More replies. Thats the reason I never use GPO to map drive , login script is best. The second article I linked gives some good reasons why this is not recommended. I did a test with 2 test users using home folders in Active directory, creating home folders for each user and mapping it as a “U Drive” which is what management wants, but they I have facing above title issue. All other methods failed for me!!! CC July 26, 2023 Reply. I’m in need of best practice to get the drive mapped. There is no need to do anything more than create a gpo that maps the drive. The issue I am having is that some users are in multiple department shares. Works great most of the time, but we keep running into specific scenario over and over. I would like the printers deployed based on computer GPO as a standard. Right click your So I almost never use this Create option in practice. In fact, they won't reappear until the user logs off and back onto the machine. I know i could do this via the GPMC, but would prefer to do it programtically. As you know my existing map drives got NTFS permissions and with DFS do I have configure DFS share again with same permissions nazihhaddad7912 (Nazih Haddad) May 9, 2014, 12:53am It has a single parameter: -GPOName. Refer to Figure 4 below. Using DFS(R) coupled with RBAC, you have a secure, easy to manage, least privilege, best practice file system in effect at your company. i create a new GPO in my domain and edit it to map network drive to all pc under --> user configuration--> preferences-->window settings--Drive maps. We used to have it set to "Replace" but realised that caused disconnection issues when a GPO refresh was triggered at the same moment a user was working on a remote file. I would like to change the path for a lot of these servers in this gpo with powershell if possible. PROBLEM SOLVED Learn how to safely and effectively implement GPO drive mapping with expert tips and best practices. It's a clean and easy way to add/remove drive mappings as people come and go and change jobs. We’re wanting it to work in a way that when a user changes groups their printer mappings change with them, and apparently if using GPP On the GPO, right-click and select Edit to open the Group Policy Management Editor. Before we start troubleshooting, here are some scoping questions that can help us understand the Hi All I’m having a bit of trouble with a Group Policy Preference and I’m hoping you can help. To my understanding Windows 10 trys to apply GPO's as soon as it rechecks them. ” Update will create a mapping if it does exist and update an existing mapping created by a GPP in the GPO. Checkboxes and drop down lists, no need to understand GPO allows configuring flexible rules to automatically map network drives based on the security groups the user is a member of, their current location, etc. Moved user and system to different OUs Went into registry and removed any reference to the mapped drives Ran: net use * /del and nothing was available to delete. ; Click User configuration > Preferences > window settings > Right click on Drive Maps > I had to manually disconnect the network drive on those workstations and force a GPO refresh. One of the current challenges when moving from a group policy to MDM with Intune is the lack of support for group policy preferences (GPP). Right-click on the newly created GP and click "Edit" 6. Review disa stig for findings as well. Not only is it easier to understand for people who aren’t into scripting, it’s also easier to keep track of and audit. The home drive that was mapped to my documents and the company drive that was a DFS share like you described. I will use Security Groups. We have recently switched users from bat scripts to GPO for network drive mapping. Because the computer has no READ access to the user’s GPO (which, post-update is required), so you get “inaccessible”. How-To Geek. This will remove a drive mapping. This guide Creating a GPO Drive Map. I have one particular policy that is the master drive mapping policy that I am trying to migrate mappings from other policies to as well as add a couple that we’ve still been manually Trying to troubleshoot a drive mapping issue with Group Policy (Server 2008 R2/ Windows 7 client). I created a GPO for the interns to Map two network drives as T and V. Scratched everything and ended up with two drives. msc to find where they I certainly hope it’s not mapping drives or deploying printers It was more about not touching the default policy at all than a ‘best practice suggestion. This network drive is located on a server (in the same virtual network as the virtual desktops). Fixes an issue in which a mapped drive is displayed incorrectly as a disconnected drive in Windows Explorer when you use the non-persistent flag to create the A Drive inner element with a removePolicy attribute equaling true indicates the Group Policy Drive Map extension should remove the drive map if the Group Policy Configure Group Policy to Map a Shared Network Drive. Hi All! I use a GPO to map drives. HQ hosts all of the servers. Just done this the other day, as we are looking to do aadj devices with hybrid users, and might use it on hybrid joined devices to reduce the GPO footprint. Menu where you can right-click and choose to Create a GPO. Can someone explain best practice for using GPO to map drives? I am currently running scripts with net use and finally going to be moving into the GPO state for this. For instance, you have a billing department that needs access to a Q: drive. Try to stay under 100 GPOs for a domain unless your a fairly large company. We currently use . 🔤🔗🗺️ Apply the GPO to the OU containing the user accounts. All applications work great but some of my drive mappings don’t show up in File Explorer. On a Microsoft Windows Server with the Active Directory role installed, open the Group Policy Management. So , G for IT DePartment ,H for HR Deparment and so on. My question is : what is the best practice to mapping the drives via GPO? Is there a highly recommended guide out there? My GPO Setting summary: -user configuration--> preferences-->window settings--Drive maps we will achieve by adding security groups Hi u/BrightSign_nerd. Enhance your group policy management editor skills for improved productivity and security. I have a Group Policy in a domain that have lots of drive mapping settings. 2) NA 3) The GPO has the 'status' setting of "Computer configuration settings are disabled" 4) That particular GPO does not have anything configured in Computer Section, thus it's disabled per best practice. To create a Drive Map Preference, expand User Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings, and select Drive Maps. We have a multitude of drives which target user security groups rather than OUs. Rick M July 7, 2023 Reply. You can set login scripts to map a shared drive based on a security group filter. I have multiple shared folders that equal drive lette There is a tool you can get to assist here and they provide a sample scrip to do GPO drive mapping. Best Practices for Group Policy Performance. It is a great tool It's also just as trivial to set up a GPO to map drive as it is a logon script. The Windows architecture provides the ability to redirect user data in a domain/networked environment through Folder Redirection, Offline Files, and Roaming User Profiles, collectively known as User State Virtualization. To complement this functionality, applications are provided with the ability to Use the GPO you already have and create a new Drive Map Preference Item, and use Item Level Targeting to apply “if User is ”. (E. I just assume that you know what a GPO is and how to create one. Disable the GPO setting that maps your drives and run a gpupdate /force while connected to the network then test the result while off network. The policy name is Drive Maps preference extension policy processing, we just enable this. I’m linking the policy (policies) to a general user group and then targeting the mapping based on security group. Here's a smattering of sanitized examples: Users - Operating System - Baseline Users - Operating System - Drive Mappings Best practice is also probably to test this in a separate environment (good job on the lab!!!); failing that with a GPO or GPP that is specifically targeted to test users (either by a test OU, security filtering, or Item Level Targeting in the GP Preference Item). Computer account processes 5 GPOs, including GPO A. I have been having issues for a while now where the script set up to run at login in the GPO seems to be flakey on the drive mappings. SiI have a drive for Education, one for Housekeeping, one for Accounts etc I have 6 drives so far and probably mote to come. Yes, please send when you find it, I would be very interested in reading it. Add the name of your GPO (ex: Finance J Drive Mapping) and click OK. It does not appear the new network map drive under It lists the drive mapping GPO settings and within those is the L: drive setting and it is showing the updated folder path, it’s just not wanting to map on the computers. The pc I’m trying to map it to is an xp box with gpp installed on it. To accomplish this: Under the Common tab of the mapped drive properties, check the Item-level targeting option, and then click Targeting. vbs logon scripts through AD for drive mappings and push printer connections per OU via Group Policy. January 10, 2025. discussion, active-directory-gpo. Enter a name for your new GPO; Part 2. Templates and Security Policy. Right-click on the newly created GPO and choose Edit. Give your GPO a name. Configuring item-level targeting for drive mapping. Modify the GPO settings. Here are 10 of them. In addition, scripting versus gpo is a lot like the I have two users that are interns. Then set 1 GPO that maps 2 drive letters for all users. Then click the three-dots icon in the top ribbon area and select Map network drive from The machine and my account can access the shares manually, and i could manually map the drive, but that’s not what I really want to do. First things first – How to Create a Drive Map with Windows Server 2016. this works great for us to map drives. When the GPO refresh occurred every ~90 minutes, the drive paths were not updating to the new location, instead the old mapping remained but of course was unable to connect to anything as the old NAS was down. The NAS is attached to the domain and I can see all of the domain users on the NAS. Navigate to User Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Drive Mappings ; Right Click Drive Mappings, Select New – > Mapped Drive ; Configure Drive Mapping Properties ; General Tab Settings In location If that happens, you must remove the script, disconnect any drives, reboot the computer and try to map using the credentials you intend to use for gpo. Thanks. the best thind to do for Network shares map or Network Printer Map is to use GPO, and more precisely GPP (Group Policy Preferences). bat script while in the Company building.