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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 we have found, is that if the maps are deleted, and a gpupdate /force is run, the maps do not reappear. In fact, they won't reappear until the user logs off and back onto the machine.

Is this expected behaviour, or should the drive map be recreated during a GP update? Our concern is that someone inadvertently disconnects their primary drive map, then after our refresh period it does not reappear automatically, meaning they call us and we have no option but to get them to log out and back in.

James Edmonds
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  • Are these drive mappings done with a logon script in the GPO or with Group Policy Preferences? – joeqwerty Nov 16 '17 at 17:36
  • Do you use the "Reconnect" option for the drive mapping? Also, if you're afraid of user deleting drive mapping, you can remove "Disconnect Network Drive" through GPO, and they'll have to use `net use : /delete`. – shinjijai Nov 16 '17 at 20:56
  • These are GPP items, not via logon script. I will check in the morning if we have the reconnect option set, and will also check out the disconnect option. – James Edmonds Nov 16 '17 at 22:09
  • Unfortunately, even when the reconnect option is ticked, it does not reconnect until a log off and back on. – James Edmonds Nov 17 '17 at 10:05

2 Answers2

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In my experience, drive maps through Group Policy are always done during user logon. If you have the Highly Detailed Status Messages showing during startup/login, you'll see the step during user login for mapping network drives.

In theory, you could do a scheduled task that runs a script every X amount of minutes to map the network drives, but that may be a bigger headache to manage than telling the user to log off and back on- it all depends on the situation.

Allen Howard
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  • I personally like group policy preferences to manage these, purely because we can have 1 group policy object controlling all items of this type, with item level targeting. My understanding was, logon script would apply to anyone specified on the GPO, meaning we would need multiple GPOs. – James Edmonds Nov 16 '17 at 22:11
  • I believe you are correct with that. In practice multiple GPOs are preferred, but I completely understand how much easier it is to manage with one. – Allen Howard Nov 17 '17 at 14:30
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Seems to work when items are changed from update to replace.

Assume that when initially mapped via the GPO, it has some kind of ID relating to that policy in the background. Disconnecting does not remove this ID and as such the GPO thinks the drive is still connected.

Replace must ignore this relation and recreate the map regardless.

James Edmonds
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