username.domain profile in AD environment

Question

Environment: an AD domain (level W2K8) with Vista desktops and W2K8 servers and an AD domain (level W2K3) with XP desktops on W2K3 servers.

Every now and again, I notice a user that has his local profile located under C:\Users\username.domain instead of C:\Users\username

I know that can happen when the users logs in on domain A from a workstation located in domain B, but I've seen this happen a bunch of times where the .domain is the same as the workstation's domain.

When this becomes a problem, we usualy remove the local profile and have the user log on again, after which the profile is loaded correctly.

I've checked the eventviewer multiple times but have not found any entries relating to this.

The question: what is causing this behavior?

Solution 1

The most common reason in my environment is that network connectivity was interrupted (in most cases, the user power cycles the PC) while loading a roaming profile, and critical files (namely the registry) became corrupt, rendering the profile unable to load on subsequent attempts.

An ACL will do it, if the user is unable to load the profile in that directory (access denied).

IMO, corruption is the most likely candidate.

In any case: this should not be a problem. If you have scripts or applications that rely on the user profile residing at a specific location, they are broken, and need to be fixed. I understand implementing a workaround, but still, try to fix the problem.

Solution 2

If a user profile is created at C:\Users\username.domain (or C:\users\username.domain001) then its because there was already a folder or profile at C:\users\username (or at least windows thinks so).

Comments

[MDMarra]

Why is this a problem anyway? If you're referencing the path in scripts, you should be referencing %userprofile% instead of the full path.

[Jan Henckens]

We have a couple of applications that don't play nice with this...It's not always a problem, I just would like know what's causing this.

[NorbyTheGeek]

You've got good background info here, but what exactly is your question?