Server 2008 GPO not applying to Windows XP clients over site-to-site VPN

Question

I have a Server 2008 R2 based Active Directory domain. Our default GPO has a few printer/network drive maps that both work fine locally for clients running Windows 7 as well as Windows XP (after applying KB943729). We are currently trying to put some remote offices that do not have local DC's on our domain (connected over site-to-site VPN) and are running into an issue where only machines running Windows 7 are able to pull down these policies and apply them to the local machine. Windows XP clients on the other hand completely ignore the drive/printer map policies. If I try to load rsop.msc on an affected Windows XP client I get an "Invalid Namespace" warning and I can't even see the policy. I have tried:

• re-joining an affected machine to the domain (does nothing)
• Disabling Slow Link Detection on both user/computer policies (does nothing)
• Confirming that the user logged in has rights to the SYSVOL share on the DC. (all Authenticated Users do)

Is there something that I am missing here? I know that putting a local DC in every office would probably fix the issue but we don't have that kind of money to spend right now.

Answer 1

I'd recommend enabling debugging in UserEnv to see what kind of hay you can make from that log.

The "Invalid Namespace" error smacks of a problem with WMI. Are you able to see any results in the RSoP snap-in (I'm not clear what you mean when you say "I can't even see the policy".)