Users can not see usb in explorer, admins can

['putertutor]

Hi All! It's been a very long time since I've checked in here. I'm hoping for a little help with a computer on my bench. It's a windows 7 ultimate with a local gpo set up for non-administrators. The issue is that users can not see any usb drive in windows explorer. Once the drive is inserted, the Autoplay pops up and users can access the contents of the drive through that, but it refuses to show up in explorer, which makes saving to the drive tricky. The admin account can see the drive in explorer without a problem.

Because of the admin visibility, I feel like it is a setting in the gpo, but don't see anything obvious (at least to me). There are no usb drive restrictions set, no real drive restrictions at all. I may be down to testing each one of the settings, but I'd rather not spend that amount of time. One of two things has happened here: either I am unaware of some obscure result of an otherwise normal looking setting (like if "prohibit changing desktop wallpaper" also hides drives for some reason), or the gpo is a red herring and I'm chasing my tail for no reason.

I'm open to suggestions..... please.

 

[nlinecomputers]

https://serverfault.com/questions/576768/disable-usb-mass-storage-access-on-client-machines

 

['putertutor]

https://serverfault.com/questions/576768/disable-usb-mass-storage-access-on-client-machines

Thanks for the reply, nline. I had already searched and found that suggestion and checked it out. None of those settings were active, so that's not it.

 

[Moltuae]

What drive letter does the USB drive get when you access it through autoplay and what happens if you try to access that drive letter directly in explorer by typing it in?

Is the drive visible if you access Disk Management from the user account, and what happens if you change the drive letter?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Thanks for the reply, nline. I had already searched and found that suggestion and checked it out. None of those settings were active, so that's not it.

At the risk of being Captian Obvious, GPO has three settings, Enabled, Disabled, or Not Configured. Try setting them to disabled.

If it is not GPO then some other security package is blocking access. Check for AV programs or other third party security programs running on the system.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Also is this system part of an AD domain?

 

['putertutor]

nline, no AD, just local gpo for non admins. I did try disabling rather than just not configured with that setting, with no luck.

Moltuae, I hadn't checked that out as the current policies don't allow user access to disk management. but I'll tweak the policies and find out.

Issue still present with AV disabled. But the fact that admin account has no issue leads me to believe the av is not at fault here anyway. Kaspersky Total 2017, btw.

 

[nlinecomputers]

One of the advertised features of KAV is the ability to block removable drive access. It is almost certainly the cause of your problems.

 

[aburwig]

I'll check it out. Wouldn't it affect the admin account the same way though?


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[aburwig]

In the gpo editor for non admins:
User configuration / Administrative Templates / Desktop: Remove Computer Icon on the desktop

A better name might be "Remove Computer Icon from everything" because that's what it does. Must be overworked as I missed the fact that the computer icon was also missing. No computer, then no USB drives.

It's one of those things I feel pretty silly about after I sorted it out.


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