samba - Aug 1997 - Pointing your Win95/WinNT Desktop directory to an SMB share?

Hello SAMBA Mailing List,

	Using TweakUI from the PowerToys suite of tools, one can easily
make thier Desktop directory point to any directory they want.  I tried
making my Desktop directory point to an SMB share on my Linux server
running SAMBA (v1.9.16p11).  However, this doesn't work very well at all.
The problem is that any changes made to the Desktop directory do not
become immediatly apparent on the Desktop.  I noticed this same behavior
when browsing other SMB drive shares from Explorer windows.  However, with
Explorer windows, all you need to do is simply hit View->Refresh.  This
option isn't available for the Desktop tho.  And even if it was, it still
wouldn't be ideal at all.

	I suspect this is a limitation of the SMB protocol, but I thought
I might check with the SAMBA list first.  Thanks in advance for any info
on this!

=============================================================================Arcadio
A. Sincero Jr. a.k.a The TicK -=LpC=-
Undergraduate Computer Science Major/Linux Enthusiast/Competitive Bodybuilder 
WWW: http://www.coming.to.a.web.site.near.you.com
e-mail: asincero@erols.com

Come hang out with me on IRC at irc.linpeople.org or face me in Quake at
quake.linpeople.org!

On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Arcadio A. Sincero Jr. wrote:
> Hello SAMBA Mailing List,
> 
> 	Using TweakUI from the PowerToys suite of tools, one can easily
> make thier Desktop directory point to any directory they want.
you can do this manually by editing the registry.  presumably, tweakui is 
an application that knows about these registry settings.

this method is _different_ from doing a domain logon (resulting in a
NetUserGetInfo call, the response to which contains the remote profile
location).  the registry settings point to the _local_ copy that the
client keeps of the profile. 

both the w95 and nt clients do a merge of the profiles, taking the last 
accessed of each of the files in the local and remote profiles.  if you 
point the local location at the remote location, you're going to have 
fun, and generate unnecessary network traffic as the profile is 
transferred over.

also, i'm not sure, but the client may lock the user.dat file thinking 
that it's a locally stored profile.  when you come to log off, the domain 
logon procedure copies the locally stored profile to the remote 
location.  if this file is locked....


using TweakUI to point to a remote server will result in excessive 
network traffic, as you say, as each user does a View | Refresh, or hits 
the "Start" button and accesses any sub-menus.  traffic that is
normally
directed at the local profile directory.


so, i'd only recommend that you use TweakUI if you're _not_ going to be 
doing remote user profiles.

luke

Left click (once) on your desktop in an area where there are no icons,
this will give focus to the desktop. Then hit F5. It's the shortcut to
Refresh.

Alternatively, try these keystrokes:

CNTL-ESC
ESC
TAB
TAB
F5

Enjoy!

On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Arcadio A. Sincero Jr. wrote:
> Hello SAMBA Mailing List,
> 
> 	Using TweakUI from the PowerToys suite of tools, one can easily
> make thier Desktop directory point to any directory they want.  I tried
> making my Desktop directory point to an SMB share on my Linux server
> running SAMBA (v1.9.16p11).  However, this doesn't work very well at
all.
> The problem is that any changes made to the Desktop directory do not
> become immediatly apparent on the Desktop.  I noticed this same behavior
> when browsing other SMB drive shares from Explorer windows.  However, with
> Explorer windows, all you need to do is simply hit View->Refresh.  This
> option isn't available for the Desktop tho.  And even if it was, it
still
> wouldn't be ideal at all.
> 
> 	I suspect this is a limitation of the SMB protocol, but I thought
> I might check with the SAMBA list first.  Thanks in advance for any info
> on this!
> 
>
=============================================================================>
Arcadio A. Sincero Jr. a.k.a The TicK -=LpC=-
> Undergraduate Computer Science Major/Linux Enthusiast/Competitive
Bodybuilder
> WWW: http://www.coming.to.a.web.site.near.you.com
> e-mail: asincero@erols.com
> 
> Come hang out with me on IRC at irc.linpeople.org or face me in Quake at
> quake.linpeople.org!
> 
> 
                                [Darrin]

 "I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious."
				- A. Einstein

Darrin M. Gorski, Research Computer Systems Network Support
Scientific Research Laboratories, Ford Motor Company
Internet: dgorski@ford.com | Tel/Fax: +1 (313) 248-3753

On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Arcadio A. Sincero Jr. wrote:
> 	Using TweakUI from the PowerToys suite of tools, one can easily
> make thier Desktop directory point to any directory they want.  I tried
> making my Desktop directory point to an SMB share on my Linux server
> running SAMBA (v1.9.16p11).  However, this doesn't work very well at
all.
> The problem is that any changes made to the Desktop directory do not
> become immediatly apparent on the Desktop.  I noticed this same behavior
> when browsing other SMB drive shares from Explorer windows.  However, with
> Explorer windows, all you need to do is simply hit View->Refresh.  This
> option isn't available for the Desktop tho.  And even if it was, it
still
> wouldn't be ideal at all.
I'm currently experimenting with this myself and have noticed the same
problem.  I find this makes for a useful part of a strategy to prevent
users in a mutliple-alike-workstation, central server situation from
keeping files on their hard drives (which can be an admin headache).

One thing I can add is that you can use the standard Windows Explorer
keyboard hotkey for refresh (F5) to refresh the desktop, but only if the
desktop is the "active window" (something which you can't tell
just by
looking at the screen, the titlebar could be the active window instead,
for e.g - but it helps to click on the desktop first - nice inexact
science, Microsoft style)

I have found one reference to a possible solution, but my limited
experimentation with it hasn't produced success:

According to http://www.halcyon.com/cerelli/registry.html#screenrefresh :

"  Automatic Screen Refresh 
   
   Added 10/24/96
                                                                           
   When you make changes to your hard drive and use Explorer, the changes
   are not usually displayed until you press the F5 key
   To make the updates automatic:
    
    1. Start Regedit                                                   
    2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet / Control /
       UpdateMode
    3. Edit the DWORD value to be between 1 and 7
    4. Restart Windows
"

I've played with this a little, but haven't even tried all seven
settings.
No luck so far.

What is needed is some way to tell explorer.exe to check the directory (in
this case the dir specified as the desktop directory) for updates, every x
seconds.
> 	I suspect this is a limitation of the SMB protocol, but I thought
> I might check with the SAMBA list first.  Thanks in advance for any info
> on this!
Not an SMB limitation, but a design limitation in Windows Explorer.  It
seems to be designed to work in a situation where the kernel can notify it
if any changes have been made to a folder, which is the case on a local
hard drive for e.g.   A different situation exists on a networked share -
Explorer has no way to know things have changes unless it polls it
periodically, which (at least by default) it doesn't seem to do.

Regards

---------------------------------------------------------------|-----|--
Louis Mandelstam              Tel +27 83 227-0712   Symphony  /|\   /|\
Linux systems integration     http://sr.co.za       Research {   } {   }
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