Networks

In years of IT work, I?ve always figured out what I needed without getting actively involved in a tech site. Passive searching has always filled the need. Now I have a situation that requires it. Please excuse any forum miss-steps. My network is AD 2008 R2 on the DCs and XP desktops, and I use GPOs to redirect My Docs to user?s home folder. AD user accts are defined with home folder as F: to \\server\share\username. This server is 2003 R2. My personal acct has Domain Admin rights. We have skipped the Vista generation.

I?m working now with Win7 and want to achieve basically the same end result, but I?m having a confusing set of issues. When I log into the net from a Win7 box I have my F: drive as required, but when I make a temp mapping to \\server\share, I cannot see my own home folder. I can see all user folders, except for 3 test users that have previously logged in via Win7 (including my own). When I do this same procedure from a XP box I can see ALL user folders. On the Win7 box, at CMD, I am able to navigate to the share, and then into all of the 3 user folders that I cannot see in Explorer. Also, from the 03 R2 server that hosts the user share, I notice that the icon for the 3 users? folder has changed, indicating that the mere act of logging into AD via Win7 has modified some property of the user network folder. I verified this with a new temp user and viewed it before and after. I also created a 2nd temp user but this time did not define the home folder as F: to \\server\share\username. I left this property default. This time I can see this user?s folder from the share, and the icon does not change upon login.

Can someone help explain what is going on here? How much does this behavior have to do with 1) defining the home folder, 2) redirection of My Docs, 3) Win7 Libraries, 4) indexing of libraries? What is the significance of the changing icon (and how can I reverse it)? Is UAC or the tighter Win7 security involved? I would like to maintain the F: drive home folder definition. ABE is not configured. Properties and rights of the user folders are as it should be. The policy ?Turn off Windows Libraries features that rely on indexed file data? is enabled. MS support is actively working with me, but as of yet has no conclusion.
Thanks in advance.