Defender Interfering with Offline Folders?

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Guest

Some background...

My Laptop is part of a Domain. My "My Documents" folder is redirected to a
network share on my desktop machine (which is not part of the Domain) and is
also set up as an Offline Folder. To overcome any Security issues I have a
specific account and password on my Desktop machine which I use on my Laptop
to access the redirected "My Documents" folder.

Since installing and using Defender I appear to have encountered a problem.
It seems that Defender attempts to access "My Documents" (only identified
when uninstalling Defender which failed because it couldn't access
"Favourites" which I have as part of my "My Documents" folder; vis:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders] "Favorites"="\\\\homesystem\\offlineshare\\Favorites").

Normally this seems to be OK. However, when my laptop boots then something
seems to configure the account name for the access to "My Documents" folder
incorrectly. I believe this is the Defender Service becoming active before
the Folder Redirection is set up properly.

Once this is set the only way for me to recover is to temporarily disconnect
my laptop from my LAN, remove Defender, disable all offline folders, reset
"My Documents" back to the default setting, reboot, re-enable offline folders
and then re-redirect My Documents to the remote share.

I have had a similar problem with some software called O&O Defrag, which
also attempts to access My Documents, from a Service. A simple solution might
be for you to put your data in the "Application Data" part of the users
profile rather than the "My Documents" part.

Anyway, I hope this explanation is clear and is helpful. Please let me know
if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks, Jim

Hardware: HP Pavillion T770
Software: Windows XP Professional SP2
Windows Defender Version: 1.1.1051.0
Engine Version: 1.1.1185.0
Signature Version: 1.13.1272.4
 
Jim--I've been leaving your message marked unread to see if either I had
this experience myself or saw anyone else post anything which might be
related.

I haven't seen such posts, or had this experience myself, or had it reported
to me by users. I have only a handful of users using this feature, though
and it may not have been checked yet.

Fwiw, the Defender data I've spotted has been in the all users\application
data area.
 
Hi Bill, thanks for responding.

Actually I am sitting here writing this with a embarrased look on my face!

Because the symptoms were the same as those exhibited O&O defrag I jumped to
the same conclusion - so my investigations were biased.

Actually the problem was caused by two changes occuring at the same time
(bad engineering practice!); installing a new router and upgrading Defender.
It turns out that the new router had a DHCP lease period of 1 day,
significantly different from my previous router. The upshot was the machines
swapped IP address. The final twist was that for various reasons I had had to
implement a manual entry in the HOST file for the laptop to find the
workstation. The out come being that the laptop was trying to talk to itself!


So the problem was completely unrelated to Defender, and has now been
respolved by using a fixed IP address for the workstation.

Sorry for the false alarm!

Cheers, Jim

Bill Sanderson said:
Jim--I've been leaving your message marked unread to see if either I had
this experience myself or saw anyone else post anything which might be
related.

I haven't seen such posts, or had this experience myself, or had it reported
to me by users. I have only a handful of users using this feature, though
and it may not have been checked yet.

Fwiw, the Defender data I've spotted has been in the all users\application
data area.
--

Jim said:
Some background...

My Laptop is part of a Domain. My "My Documents" folder is redirected to
a
network share on my desktop machine (which is not part of the Domain) and
is
also set up as an Offline Folder. To overcome any Security issues I have a
specific account and password on my Desktop machine which I use on my
Laptop
to access the redirected "My Documents" folder.

Since installing and using Defender I appear to have encountered a
problem.
It seems that Defender attempts to access "My Documents" (only identified
when uninstalling Defender which failed because it couldn't access
"Favourites" which I have as part of my "My Documents" folder; vis:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders] "Favorites"="\\\\homesystem\\offlineshare\\Favorites").

Normally this seems to be OK. However, when my laptop boots then something
seems to configure the account name for the access to "My Documents"
folder
incorrectly. I believe this is the Defender Service becoming active before
the Folder Redirection is set up properly.

Once this is set the only way for me to recover is to temporarily
disconnect
my laptop from my LAN, remove Defender, disable all offline folders, reset
"My Documents" back to the default setting, reboot, re-enable offline
folders
and then re-redirect My Documents to the remote share.

I have had a similar problem with some software called O&O Defrag, which
also attempts to access My Documents, from a Service. A simple solution
might
be for you to put your data in the "Application Data" part of the users
profile rather than the "My Documents" part.

Anyway, I hope this explanation is clear and is helpful. Please let me
know
if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks, Jim

Hardware: HP Pavillion T770
Software: Windows XP Professional SP2
Windows Defender Version: 1.1.1051.0
Engine Version: 1.1.1185.0
Signature Version: 1.13.1272.4
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Not a problem--what happened, and why--is useful to know--thanks!
--

Jim said:
Hi Bill, thanks for responding.

Actually I am sitting here writing this with a embarrased look on my face!

Because the symptoms were the same as those exhibited O&O defrag I jumped
to
the same conclusion - so my investigations were biased.

Actually the problem was caused by two changes occuring at the same time
(bad engineering practice!); installing a new router and upgrading
Defender.
It turns out that the new router had a DHCP lease period of 1 day,
significantly different from my previous router. The upshot was the
machines
swapped IP address. The final twist was that for various reasons I had had
to
implement a manual entry in the HOST file for the laptop to find the
workstation. The out come being that the laptop was trying to talk to
itself!


So the problem was completely unrelated to Defender, and has now been
respolved by using a fixed IP address for the workstation.

Sorry for the false alarm!

Cheers, Jim

Bill Sanderson said:
Jim--I've been leaving your message marked unread to see if either I had
this experience myself or saw anyone else post anything which might be
related.

I haven't seen such posts, or had this experience myself, or had it
reported
to me by users. I have only a handful of users using this feature,
though
and it may not have been checked yet.

Fwiw, the Defender data I've spotted has been in the all
users\application
data area.
--

Jim said:
Some background...

My Laptop is part of a Domain. My "My Documents" folder is redirected
to
a
network share on my desktop machine (which is not part of the Domain)
and
is
also set up as an Offline Folder. To overcome any Security issues I
have a
specific account and password on my Desktop machine which I use on my
Laptop
to access the redirected "My Documents" folder.

Since installing and using Defender I appear to have encountered a
problem.
It seems that Defender attempts to access "My Documents" (only
identified
when uninstalling Defender which failed because it couldn't access
"Favourites" which I have as part of my "My Documents" folder; vis:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders] "Favorites"="\\\\homesystem\\offlineshare\\Favorites").

Normally this seems to be OK. However, when my laptop boots then
something
seems to configure the account name for the access to "My Documents"
folder
incorrectly. I believe this is the Defender Service becoming active
before
the Folder Redirection is set up properly.

Once this is set the only way for me to recover is to temporarily
disconnect
my laptop from my LAN, remove Defender, disable all offline folders,
reset
"My Documents" back to the default setting, reboot, re-enable offline
folders
and then re-redirect My Documents to the remote share.

I have had a similar problem with some software called O&O Defrag,
which
also attempts to access My Documents, from a Service. A simple solution
might
be for you to put your data in the "Application Data" part of the users
profile rather than the "My Documents" part.

Anyway, I hope this explanation is clear and is helpful. Please let me
know
if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks, Jim

Hardware: HP Pavillion T770
Software: Windows XP Professional SP2
Windows Defender Version: 1.1.1051.0
Engine Version: 1.1.1185.0
Signature Version: 1.13.1272.4
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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