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Drive mapping scripts vs GPO

lunacyfoundme

I'm trying to get familiar with our work server and I've just noticed that the IT support crowd have mapped network drives with scripts;

GPO Editor > User config > Policies > Windows settings > Scripts > Logon

rather than just adding the drive straight in by the policy from;

GPO Editor > User config > Preferences > Windows settings > Drive maps

Is there some advantage to using scripts? Any tutorials on drive mapping I've seen have used the second method.

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Static M.e.

Scripts would be the old school way of doing it and a lot of organisation AD\GPO's wouldn't really change that much over the years. The old adage of If it ain't broke don't try to fix it. There is no particular advantage now but back in the day (WS2003 or before) scripts were more reliable.

Well done on trying to figure out how and why the GPO works a certain way. Curiosity is an important IT strength often over looked. If you have more questions keep coming back, if I see the posts I'll do my best to answer you.

Ctrl Alt Del

Hi,

I'm one that is using scripts,save them in "netlogon" or in each GPO container .
In a typical script i can execute more than a drive mapping function !

Have fun...
Regards

lunacyfoundme

Thanks guys,

I did some research and figured out that they were the same thing mostly. I don't know scripting yet so I'll stick to GPO when I'm reorganising things.

lunacyfoundme

Just to revisit this a bit more I've found that you can map the drives with GPO but if your move a user account to a new OU with differently mapped drives via GPo the mappings from the previous OUs GPO still remain.

I wonder then are scripts the way to go if they can delete the mapping on each logoff.

Or in a small organisation with minimal movement between roles does it really matter?

LoGiE

Use Group Policy Preferences unless your doing something really special with your scripts. It's very easy to make changes.

edanto

lunacyfoundme wrote: »

Just to revisit this a bit more I've found that you can map the drives with GPO but if your move a user account to a new OU with differently mapped drives via GPo the mappings from the previous OUs GPO still remain.

That's not strictly true, it depends how the GPP was set up. If set up in Replace mode, you can set it to remove the mapping when no longer applied.

If set up in create mode, it won't check to see if it should still be created, it just leaves the drive mapping as it is.

The disadvantage to Replace mode, is that the logon may take longer but in practise I've not found that to be a serious concern when GP is well organised. (and by that I mean NOT making a different Group Policy Object for every small setting and having scores of them applied to each OU).

In answer to the OP, for someone just learning how to do this, focus on GPP and forget about scripts. Jeremy's book from http://www.gpanswers.com/ is one I'd recommend learning from.

ObeyTheSuit

Hi lunacyfoundme,

Microsoft provides the tools to empower the administrator to get their job done as efficiently as possible, and allows them more than one avenue to get said job done. It is up to the administrator to choose a technology path that will provide the least operational overhead to manage while maintaining appropriate security protections, and allow them to work with a technology they are comfortable with such as GP drive mappings vs scripts.

Rule of thumb I live by: If there is an out-of-the-box way of doing things there is no need for a script. In the example you have provided I personally would go with Group Policy, I just prefer everything in one place and I too see scripting as a bit dated and cumbersome. That's just me though as I've said there's no standard or authority on the matter.

The majority of logon scripts I come across are 'old as', require updating and I work on big networks.