A nice feature of Active Directory’s (AD’s)
Group Policy Objects (GPOs) is folder redirection,
which was introduced in Windows 2000.
In folder redirection, special folders typically
found on users’ local computers are moved
to a server. This is often done to ensure those
folders will be backed up regularly. However,
Windows restricts its use to only four user
folders—Application Data, Desktop, My
Documents, and Start Menu—without giving
you an option to redirect other folders.
Sometimes companies might want to
redirect other special user folders. A common
scenario is a company that doesn’t
want to use roaming profiles because they
make clients heavily dependent on file
servers, consume a lot of bandwidth, and
use a lot of server disk space, but the company
finds that redirecting only the four
folders is inadequate. Redirecting other
folders such as Cookies, Favorites, Recent
Files, and SendTo consumes little disk space
but offers the advantage of saving users a
lot of time because these folders are available
on all computers they log on to.
Although you can’t use GPOs to redirect
more folders, you can redirect them by
tweaking the registry. Settings for users’
special folders reside in the HKEY_CURRENT
_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders keys. To achieve redirection,
you must tweak both keys at the same time.
For example, suppose you want to
move the Favorites folder from users’ local
machines to your server. All you have to do
is follow these steps:
1. In the Shell Folders and User
Shell Folders keys, set the Favorites
entry to the value of \\ServerName RedirectedFolders\%username%\Favorites,
where ServerName is the name of the
server on which the Favorites folder will
reside. Note the %username% variable in
the value. By using this variable instead of
hard-coding a user’s name, you can use a
logon script to change the registry settings
in many machines.
2. Export the settings for the Shell Folders
and User Shell Folders keys to a .reg file.
Delete all but the Favorites settings, so that
the .reg file looks like that in Figure 1.
3. Copy the .reg file to a shared folder
on the DC, such as a folder created for
scripts and their associated files.
4. Create the following logon script to
import the .reg file into the registry:
net use X: "RegFilePath"
reg.exe import X:\RegFile
net use X: /d /y
where X is the drive on which the .reg file is
stored (e.g., Z), RegFilePath is the path to the
.reg file (e.g., \\DC1\Scripts), and RegFile is
the name of the .reg file (e.g., Favorites.reg). This script uses the Net
Use command to connect
to the shared
folder containing the
.reg file. After the
connection is made,
the reg.exe import
command copies that
file’s contents into the
registry. Finally, the
script uses the Net Use command to
delete the connection that was temporarily
created.
Alternatively, you can use a logon script
that contains only one line:
reg.exe import RegFile
In this case, RegFile needs to contain the
full pathname to the .reg file (e.g., \\DC1 Scripts\Favorites.reg).
5. To run this script, create or open
an existing GPO, then navigate to User
Settings\Windows Settings\Scripts\Logon.
Add the script to the Logon scripts dialog
box. Close the GPO.
Although there are other ways to make
these registry changes (e.g., creating your
own .adm files, using Windows Management
Instrumentation’s System Registry
provider in a .vbs script), I prefer this method
because of its simplicity. I successfully used it
to redirect the Favorites, SendTo, and Recent
folders from many Windows XP machines to
a server. Before you deploy this solution, be
sure to thoroughly test it.
—Apostolos Fotakelis, systems administrator,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
and freelance IT consultant