URL Files Keep Corrupting User Roaming Profiles - Windows Server 2003 Profile folder - Users logging onto XP and Vista
We use roaming profiles across our domain. They have been working fine for years. However over the past four/five months users have been denied access to their profiles when logging on. Each time it has been due to not being able to copy a .url file in their favorites, not the same file for each user and not always the same file for the same user when tried again. This happens mainly on XP pro machines, but can affect our Vista PCs. The roaming profiles are hosted on a Windows Server 2003 server and all security on the Profiles shared folder and subfolders is correct and in accordance with MS recommendations. I have moved profiles to another server, still WinSer2003 but 32bit and not 64bit. This cured the issue for a while, but today the same problem has started happening again. I have tried to delete the offending .url files from the users profiles on the server but each time access is denied. To be able to delete the file you have to reboot the server and then access is allowed to delete the file. When access is denied to the administrator account the file isn't in use and as described above all access levels on the file and folder are correct. Does anyone have any ideas of why this is occuring? And a solution thanks. Searching the net I have found only one other person that is having this exact problem, there Yahoo question is posted below. Unfortunatley the only answer to it was to check the security rights. Roaming profile Favourites folder Access Denied Error?I have a few roaming profiles on a domain, These have been working fine for over a year. Then last week 1 (closely followed by a few more) pcs kept coming up with 'Access Denied' (always with a .url file, from the favourites folder) and were unable to load the profile. They are XP Pro SP3 machines on a Win 2003 server domain, Any ideas? Thanks in advance. Notes:-Its usually a different .url file each time, you can log in to the pc with a different user OK, The access denied is when its trying to load the profile.I have moved the profile to another server but the same problem arose. I have scanned for viruses, none were found I cannot delete the .url file on the server, even when logged in as administrator!, I have to reboot the profile server, and then (50% of the time) it lets me delete the .url file and then the complete profile. Help !!11 people need an answerI do too
November 6th, 2009 5:07pm

Hello , I had the same issue actually , sometimes profiles won't to load correctly because .URL files is on acces denied , i don't found any solution , i create a new folder and sometimes the issue comeback nextday , sometimes not... Best Regards.
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November 13th, 2009 10:40am

I have the exact same problem at a customer, but in a slightly different environment. They use Windows 2003 terminal servers with roaming profiles on a Windows 2003 file server. The problem started to occur when I upgraded Internet Explorer to IE8. I have the same symptoms, and when I try to see the properties of the .url-files in question (in the roaming profile folder on the file server), I only get the "General" tab, not "Security", I the file can not be deleted. A quick, temporary fix is to run CHKDSK on the disk that holds the roaming profiles on the file server, with the autofix option, and answer no when it asks you to schedule a scan on next reboot (because it cannot get exclusive access on some files). This simply deletes the corrupt .url-files, and the user can load the roaming profile as normal. This is no permanent solution, though, it keeps on happening again. A quick google search reveals that we are not alone having this problem, so its's about time MS comes up with a solution to this. It's pretty apparent it has something to do with IE8, since the problem started immediately after the IE8 upgrade. I have installed all IE8 updates up to date, with no avail. Regards Morten
November 18th, 2009 1:11pm

Thanks for the replies. Morten, I will give that a go as it does keep happening on a daily basis. I agree it must be an IE8 problem.
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November 23rd, 2009 9:18pm

We are currently in the middle of a long support call to Microsoft to try and get this issue resolved. However MS are trying to lay the blame at the door of our McAfee and Symantec products on the Win Server 2003 member server that the profiles are located on. This server hosts our EPolicy Orchestrator for administering McAfee Total Protection for Endpoint and the server itself has the McAfee TPE products running on it. The Symantec productis Backup Exec v10, this server is backed up over the network. MS have asked us to disable these two products at the end of business tonight, bring the server back up and then see if the issue continues. We are not hopeful of a resloution based on this as with the above posts, our initial problems started when IE8 was released. Do any of you have these products installed on your member servers where your profiles are located?I'll keep you posted on developments.
November 30th, 2009 5:42pm

We do not use McAfee, but Trend Worryfree on both fileserver and terminalservers. The fileserver has Backup Exec 12.5, but as you say, the problems didn't occur until we installed IE8
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November 30th, 2009 6:34pm

Any updates on how this problem turned out? We are now experiencing the same issue with users that have roaming profiles after an upgrade to IE8...
February 4th, 2010 2:19am

Has anyone figured this out? I am having the same problem after updating to IE8. Clients running WinXP and roaming profiles located on a Windows 2008 server. It appears to only happen with .urls with favicons.
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February 5th, 2010 9:19pm

Hey folks... I've been experiencing this problem for months now. IE8 seems to be the culprit. Im running 2k3 server, XP SP3 clients with roaming profiles, McAfee and Barracuda Yosemite. Only a server restart seems to allow me to remove the offending folders. I have been copying the profiles, minus the damaged URLs to a new folder for now to avoid constant restarts, and removing the "bad" folders during my months patch restart. This seems to be fairly common.. anyone at Microsoft provide any assistance? chrisf70 ... how did your support call make out?Any help is appreciaited.. this is annoying. I'm seeing it once at least week for less than 60 workstations!
March 9th, 2010 8:23pm

Anyone get any answers on this? My problem is growing much worse! This is happening to about a user a day on my network. Always a damaged URL!
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March 31st, 2010 2:10pm

I have a server 2003 with xp sp2 workstations. most run ie6 and this is occuring. 3 users in specific. I completely delete their profiles, and have even gone as far as deleting the user from AD. the first logon is fine, after the 2nd logon, the url's get corrupted.Server has all patches installed and so does the the 1 particular workstation i am working on (xp sp3 with IE8 and all fixes.) this is getting to the point where the romaing profile won't load at all and users can't work.
June 10th, 2010 6:01pm

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