OS X/Windows share mapping
I have a couple of Macs on a Windows domain in the school I work in as kind of a test to see how well they really work in a Windows environment. I'm able to get them to bind to Active Directory and I can log in fine. However, this is where 2 of my problems start. Maybe its an OS X issue, maybe its a Windows Server issue. All of the Macs are running Mac OS 10.5.6. They're new alu MacBooks.
1. When everyone logs in they're supposed to get their own shared drive (referred to as their H drive). This drive does map, but in the Dock only. So I went to the Finder menu and selected Preferences and told Finder to display Connected Servers. It shows the network drive, but its not my H drive. Its the actual folder that my H drive is housed in. To kind of draw a picture here, my H drive is housed in cscsadmin as are other administrators and IT personnel. So when I log in using my username and password it will show my H drive in the dock and I can see all of items in that drive and on the desktop the cscsadmin drive is mapped instead of my H drive.
If I login as lab it will log in fine, but show the lab shared drive (they don't get H drives) in the dock but show cscsteachers on the Desktop as thats where the lab share is located. So its not just limited to 1 particular user. This is a systemwide issue for the Macs only.
Anyone have any ideas as to why it shows the folder that houses the shared drive instead of the users drive? I know this used to work fine because I've done it before, but that was back in the days of Mac OS X.3. Back then users H drives showed fine on the desktop.
2. My other issue is that when I'm using one of the Macs on the network (remember its a Windows network primarily) every time someone goes to print it comes up and asks for a username and password. So prints always prompts for a username and password. This is causing issues because people are checking the save in keychain box so they don't have to type the password in every time and if they screw up their credentials it saves the wrong credentials and won't let the user print anything on that Mac. I need to figure out why printing always asks users for their credentials to print.
Were looking to put more Macs in the district so working out these issues are a very important step to convincing administrators its the way to go.
1. When everyone logs in they're supposed to get their own shared drive (referred to as their H drive). This drive does map, but in the Dock only. So I went to the Finder menu and selected Preferences and told Finder to display Connected Servers. It shows the network drive, but its not my H drive. Its the actual folder that my H drive is housed in. To kind of draw a picture here, my H drive is housed in cscsadmin as are other administrators and IT personnel. So when I log in using my username and password it will show my H drive in the dock and I can see all of items in that drive and on the desktop the cscsadmin drive is mapped instead of my H drive.
If I login as lab it will log in fine, but show the lab shared drive (they don't get H drives) in the dock but show cscsteachers on the Desktop as thats where the lab share is located. So its not just limited to 1 particular user. This is a systemwide issue for the Macs only.
Anyone have any ideas as to why it shows the folder that houses the shared drive instead of the users drive? I know this used to work fine because I've done it before, but that was back in the days of Mac OS X.3. Back then users H drives showed fine on the desktop.
2. My other issue is that when I'm using one of the Macs on the network (remember its a Windows network primarily) every time someone goes to print it comes up and asks for a username and password. So prints always prompts for a username and password. This is causing issues because people are checking the save in keychain box so they don't have to type the password in every time and if they screw up their credentials it saves the wrong credentials and won't let the user print anything on that Mac. I need to figure out why printing always asks users for their credentials to print.
Were looking to put more Macs in the district so working out these issues are a very important step to convincing administrators its the way to go.
Comments
I have a couple of Macs on a Windows domain in the school I work in as kind of a test to see how well they really work in a Windows environment. I'm able to get them to bind to Active Directory and I can log in fine. However, this is where 2 of my problems start. ...
You're thinking like a Windows user. Windows uses the drives paradigm. This is to say that it thinks of all storage as physical media on which the data is stored. This paradigm carries over from MS-DOS which came from Q-DOS which came from CP/M [which may have come from RT-11]. At any rate, the Mac uses the concept of volume. A Mac volume is that highest level abstraction of the data on a physical storage device. You Mac does not display your CD drive; it displays your inserted CD.
I said all of that to say this: Your Mac should be treating your H drives as mounted volumes. Without knowledge of your specific configuration, I would expect your shared volumes to appear in your Finder sidebar and on your Desktop. if your H drive appears in your Dock, then someone placed an alias of it in the Dock.
It is not at all clear whether or not anything unexpected is happening. If indeed your H drive appears in the Dock but nowhere else, then whoever setup this behavior got "creative."
You're thinking like a Windows user. Windows uses the drives paradigm. This is to say that it thinks of all storage as physical media on which the data is stored. This paradigm carries over from MS-DOS which came from Q-DOS which came from CP/M [which may have come from RT-11]. At any rate, the Mac uses the concept of volume. A Mac volume is that highest level abstraction of the data on a physical storage device. You Mac does not display your CD drive; it displays your inserted CD.
I said all of that to say this: Your Mac should be treating your H drives as mounted volumes. Without knowledge of your specific configuration, I would expect your shared volumes to appear in your Finder sidebar and on your Desktop. if your H drive appears in your Dock, then someone placed an alias of it in the Dock.
It is not at all clear whether or not anything unexpected is happening. If indeed your H drive appears in the Dock but nowhere else, then whoever setup this behavior got "creative."
The H drive from the very first time I tried to log in mounted in the Dock and didn't appear correctly on the desktop. No alias's were ever created. This is the very first time a Mac has ever been on this network as a regular workstation on the domain. The mounted volume that shows in the Finder window sidebar is the cscsadmin folder instead of my H drive just like what appears on the Desktop. There has got to be a reason why this is happening. Also, I should add if I try to open up cscsadmin it doesn't show anything inside it even though there are lots of things inside the cscsadmin volume, including my H drive and others. I know I have rights to the folder as when I log in on a Windows workstation it works fine. Also, I can directly connect and mount my H drive to the Finder and Desktop if I put in the entire path and then it will appear on the desktop. I've created a little app from automator that will do this. However since its specifying my username specifically it cannot be used for anyone else but me. I don't want to have to use that anyways. Like I said before, this used to work fine in Mac OS 10.3, and now it doesn't work like it should. There's got to be a reason why its not mounting the correct drive upon login.
I have to think like a Windows user because its on a Windows network. If I thinked like a Mac user it would never work!