KB article regarding GP Processing and SMB signing
One of the other GP MVPs turned me on to this relatively new KB article and associated hotfix regardling SMB signing and GP processing. Apparently,because W2K3 DCs require SMB signing for file level access, it is possible for an administrator to create a situation where GP processing fails because they have disabled client SMB signing and thus the client is not able to contact the DC to get the SYSVOL portion of GP. I suspect this causes the familiar 1038 and 1050 userenv event log errors. Essentially the hotfix accompanying this article basically tells the client that is processing GP that if the DC requires SMB signing but a policy has disabled it on the client, to go ahead and use it anyway. This ensures that GP processing doesn't fail because you've shot yourself in the foot by preventing proper client-to-DC communication. Now that's handy.