Here is the scenario: 1) Install windows on a new system. Join to the domain, use the domain administrator account to install applications, get GP settings to have WSUS update the system (we also have my documents redirected) 2) Run sysprep with -mini and -reseal 3) capture image 4) push image back down to another system 5) Upon logging into the freshly imaged machine as a regular domain user the only previous known location of 'My Documents' was the network location belonging to the domain administrator account, and as such cannot be touched/redirected by the regular domain user. Is this an issue of having a domain configuration that WDS can't handle or am I setting up improper file permission/GPO configuration on the local machine before sysprepping/imaging? My only thought is to complete step 1 from above but then take the system out of the domain and delete all domain profiles before running sysprep. Since the folder redirection happens by GP, the location of the redirected folder cannot be changed to a local folder with user accessible permissions before running sysprep. UPDATE: Using an image from a system that has NOT been joined to the domain also causes grief with our folder redirection. When pulling down the image, booting the machine and then joining it to the domain causes My Documents to not want to be synchronized properly due to a time-out looking for the domain controller. Getting around this by disabling the "Media Sense" feature of XP then brings about more problems which I have yet to remedy, specifically any files located on the local "My Documents" location (desktop.ini, My Pictures, etc) will cause an "Invalid Security Descriptor" ID. Again, do these sound like an incorrectly configured domain or just growing pains in the WDS system?

I too have had a lot of grief when pushing an image of an already joined computer over to another. Logic says there obviously doesn't exist a computer account in AD for the new computer, hence no trust is created. You need to "rejoin" so to speak. Every new computer needs to be joined to the domain, but after they're once joined you can do an image backup of that computer if you like. I use Acronis to create a secure zone image backup locally, but an even better solution would be to store it on the network (Acronis can do that, I just don't have the space). When it comes to the sync with the relocated 'My Documents' folder, my experience says the best way of relocating it is through GPO (folder redirection). Is that the way you did it? Another possible cause could be slow communication, I've had that problem a couple of times when the server hardware is slow or faulty. We actually had that problem at our own office once, after the server had been overheated a couple of times. We bought a new one when we moved to a place where heat is not an issue and haven't had a problem since. Just an idea.