We are expericning issues with GPOs not consistently applying when our Windows 7 Enterprise (32bit) clients are working offline.
All run Windows 7 Enterprise (32 bit) SP1 with most latest updates installed.
When they are booted and user logs on whilst connected to the network, there are no issues, however, when booted/log on whilst offline, intermittent issues are experienced replating to GPOs seemingly not applying correctly or at all.
Example 1.... All of our users are subjected to a quota on their user profile. Most at the default 30MB, but some at higher levels (eg 50MB, 100MB). There are also some profile exclusions configured so that certain folders under "Appdata\Roaming"
don't get counted.
No issues whilst on the network. However, when a user logs on whilst off the network (on same PC they normally use), they are sometimes not given the correct profile exclusions and those with non-standard profile sizes revert to the default 30MB. The result
being users getting messages they are over their profile size quota. Now, technically, as they're off the network it doesn't matter, as their profile won't save to the network anyway, but it still generates calls to our service desk.
Example 2... Some users have elevated user rights (eg access to run prompt, which is normally hidden). When offline, they sometimes do not get the elevated rights they expect, potentially hindering them from doing tasks that they need to do.
All I can see it pointing to is something to do with Group Policy processing, and GPOs not applying when offline, but rather than consistently, its intermittent, so we aren't able to consistently reproduce the issue.
With similar configuration, we never had issues like this on XP, so can't work out why this issue is affecting us on Windows 7.