Windows 7 NoDrives Key Hiding Local Drives

[Skavenger]

Hi, Ive pretty much exhausted every option to try and fix this and I hope someone here can help me.

I have recently installed some windows 7 operating systems onto our company Domain.
The Domain consists of primarily XP PCs and a few Vista Machines.

On ALL the installations of Windows 7 the same problem is occuring.

The registry key below hides local drives.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDrives"=dword:03fbffff

This is not in any of our policies or settings and I have trawled every setting I can think of including every GP setting.
If the key is removed manually or the value is set to "0" the drives appear for a random amount of time (in days) before the key resets and hides the drives again.
The drives can be navigated to by typing the path into the address bar. Ie. C:\

I have also tried the following
Added rule to Group Policy to set the Key to "0" and set "Hide these drives to enabled: Never Hide Drives"

Added rule to Local Policy to do the same as above

Changed NoDrives Reg key manually but it resets

Imported registry setting from reg file using logon script without success + on windows 7 this gives the user a UAC on every logon


The Key must be defaulting from somewhere but I cant find any clue as to where from.


Regards,
Richard Wall

 

[jeradw]

Is this problem only relative to the 7 machines? What about the Vista ones? Have you looked at the Default Domain Policy? Could this key be setting via a login script? Any other details about your setup would be beneficial.

 

[Skavenger]

Thanks for your reply...

This is recurring on all windows 7 machines but NOT the Vista Computers. I have also made sure the same policies are effecting Vista and 7. There are 2 XP pcs that did something similar but I think it was a user error and the problem hasn't come back on those computers.

I've been through the only logon script we have and there are no Registry based commands present. Windows 7 also prompt with a UAC if the logon script tries to update the registry (even in silent mode) which it isn't doing. There is very little active code in the logon script anyway.

Tried the default domain policy and have even tried disabling it without any success. Ive tried all the policies and even tried defining it to not hide drives.

I cant understand where the setting is coming from.

Im not sure what other detail I can give. Its just Windows 7 on our Domain and I cant think of anywhere else to look.

 

[Skavenger]

Ok I'm still trying to find a solution to this problem. Ive got 2 methods that seem to fix it but here is the issue. Ive also been in discussion with some other admins from other large companies and the ones running Windows 7 on a 2003 domain get the same issue. Before anyone suggests it updating to a 2008 domain is currently not an option as we dont have the budget.

No.1:
The Key mentioned above:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDrives"=0

Ive been trying to set this by a script but because of its location a normal user does not have the permissions to change the value.
If I give the user access to the key manually then the script works perfectly and the drives stay.

This is not good enough as multiple users could use a single machine and you have to give the user temporary local admin rights to change the permission. As the key is in HKCU you cannot run as or you get a different instance of HKCU.

A startup script will run as admin but as the user hive has not been loaded at this stage cannot make the necessary change. I cant find a way to change the setting in GP and the permissions from GP wont work as they seem to only apply to a single user as you have to specify the SID which changes with each user.

This is not a result of any script or policy ive been through everything with a fine toothed comb and fully tested removing everything applying to the machines with no luck. This is a known issue as there are other posts on the internet but I dont seem to be able to find a fix.

I believe there is a way to use regini.exe but I cant find much on it, also to change a permission doesnt a user have to be an admin?

Does anyone know how I can either change the permission or do this as a script?

No.2: Turning off UAC for some reason brings the drives back but this is not an option as the enhanced security with Windows 7 is one of the benefits.

 

[Skavenger]

Solved Finally

Use GP management from a 2008 or Win 7 machine to manage the 2003 GPO and create a new registry key in preferences to set the key mentioned above.