Redirect Favorites Folder?

[D.P. Roberts]

We have an Active Directory domain environment running Server 2003 and WinXP
Pro clients. We're using Group Policy to redirect our users' My Documents
and Desktop folders to their home directory on a network share, but there is
no policy option to do likewise with Favorites.

I've looked at the registry hack to change the path of Favorites to a
network share, but unlike redirecting via policy, this method does not
actually move the user's existing favorites to the new location. So to truly
make this work I'd have to script the registry change on everybody's box and
also run a script to move everyone's local favorites to their network share.
This solution seems messy to say the least.

I've also read about the solution of using roaming profiles to accomplish
this, which we don't want to do.

Doing a simple redirect of the Favorites folder seems like a very simple
task, and why Microsoft didn't provide this functionality in GP is beyond
me. Anyone know the best way to accomplish this?

 

[Peter Foldes]

So to truly

make this work I'd have to script the registry change on everybody's box and
also run a script to move everyone's local favorites to their network share.
This solution seems messy to say the least.

Also on a 2003 server. I found that this is the only solution at present.
Like you said a little messy but it will work

 

[andy smart]

We have an Active Directory domain environment running Server 2003 and WinXP
Pro clients. We're using Group Policy to redirect our users' My Documents
and Desktop folders to their home directory on a network share, but there is
no policy option to do likewise with Favorites.

I've looked at the registry hack to change the path of Favorites to a
network share, but unlike redirecting via policy, this method does not
actually move the user's existing favorites to the new location. So to truly
make this work I'd have to script the registry change on everybody's box and
also run a script to move everyone's local favorites to their network share.
This solution seems messy to say the least.

I've also read about the solution of using roaming profiles to accomplish
this, which we don't want to do.

Any reason why you don't want roaming profiles? We use them on our
school network and don't have too many issues - we'd have far more if we
didn't LOL

 

[D.P. Roberts]

Lots of reasons. Non-standardized hardware & software throughout our
organization is probably the biggest reason though.

 

[andy smart]

Lots of reasons. Non-standardized hardware & software throughout our
organization is probably the biggest reason though.

We have a variety of mixed hardware types and we still get it to work -
but maybe not as mixed as yours. We also have pretty much all machines
carrying the same payload which we put out via group policy.

The big reason we have to do it is that we need standardised desktops
which we can change at will, but users can't use a mandatory profile as
they have to keep some things in their profile.

Just interested in your reasoning, that was all.

 

[Leythos]

We have an Active Directory domain environment running Server 2003 and WinXP
Pro clients. We're using Group Policy to redirect our users' My Documents
and Desktop folders to their home directory on a network share, but there is
no policy option to do likewise with Favorites.

I've looked at the registry hack to change the path of Favorites to a
network share, but unlike redirecting via policy, this method does not
actually move the user's existing favorites to the new location. So to truly
make this work I'd have to script the registry change on everybody's box and
also run a script to move everyone's local favorites to their network share.
This solution seems messy to say the least.

I've also read about the solution of using roaming profiles to accomplish
this, which we don't want to do.

Doing a simple redirect of the Favorites folder seems like a very simple
task, and why Microsoft didn't provide this functionality in GP is beyond
me. Anyone know the best way to accomplish this?

If you do roaming profiles and redirected My Documents, everything moves
with the logon user, even favorites. I've got hundreds of users moving
around like that.

Roaming profiles IS the proper way to do it. There is no sense in
redirecting My Documents if you don't also have roaming profiles.