Is folder redirection a good idea. Jul 6, 2012 · It’s recommended that if you do use Roaming Profiles that you also use Redirected Folders. Folder Redirection GPO. I see information about this but I can’t see that it takes Jun 27, 2018 · A For Each loop should be good running on the backup directory, take the folder name that is the username and have it search the new profile directory for a new matching folder name, if found, copy contents, rename backup directory folder to prevent future matching and potential overwriting of files. Go to the Location Tab to verify the folder location. Dec 27, 2011 · So we want to redirect all files saved in users local My Documents folder to their home folder which is a network drive that is backed up nightly… My questions are this… We have over 1,000 users at 60+ locations. Clean up the downloads folder with a script once every 30 days. Designating primary computers is a simple and powerful method to associate user data and settings with particular computers or devices, simplify administrator oversight, improve Folder redirection and offline files are both a headache with mobile users. When we enable folder redirection will one of those files get deleted or replaced? If so is there a way to prevent this? This is how my policy is currently setup: Computer Configuration (Enabled) Policies Administrative Templates Right-click on one of the redirected folders, choose Properties, and go to the Settings tab. Add a 'Deny' permission to the GPO for the user in question. And as such they are available offline. 1 Spice up. I link GPO (disable Folder Redir) to all the OUs. Feb 13, 2009 · Folder Redirection over a VPN. All the benefits of local file access (performance and reliable offline access) while maintaining the benefits of central storage and backups. Some good responses, see we use folder redirection for our citrix environment (its not heavily used . I changed the setting to “Redirect the folder back to the local userprofile location when policy is removed. All it does is change the default locations of Profile folders to a share on the server, including (depending on which you choose to redirect) the Desktop, Application Data, Start Menu, and My Documents. It's better to copy my documets and other directories but not the special windows files. Both settings had the option enabled in the GPO to redirect the folder back to the Nov 26, 2003 · The "My Documents" folder redirection would take the attributes normally expected of a local document-storage folder, which includes having deletions go to recycle bin, but the desktop folder, IMHO, is a special type of special folder that if used with a redirectioin policy should be set read-only. By changing the Policy Removal to Redirect the folder back to the local userprofile then when the GPO is removed so are the changes that it applied. This is assuming you are also redirecting Aug 21, 2020 · Folder redirection works alongside a roaming profile solution to redirect user folders to a distributed location. Repeat Steps 1. Basically, it works the same way that XP did when your “My Documents” would point to another folder and you could view that folder path by right-clicking and going to properties. Jul 6, 2018 · Your Desktop folder is actually in C:\Users\[user name]\Desktop, and you can make links to it. Fair point from you and the_andshrew - I’ll definitely make sure the folders are actually being redirected first. The basic option redirects the folder to the same folder path for all users. At the Properties tab, select the type of redirection and the path to Apr 13, 2018 · The solution for this dilemma is the feature ‘folder redirection’. I recommend biting the bullet and educating users to save to OneDrive instead of Documents, Desktop, Downloads, etc. Folder redirection for desktop users to a network share is perfectly fine, assuming that storage is on the May 13, 2016 · I am guessing that the best idea is still 2 have the redirection source within the lan and not try everything over a vpn…? If so to switch over from roaming profiles 2 folder redirection is it as easy having a user on a computer log on and then off, remove the roaming profile, put the gp in place 4 folder redirection, and then have them log Mar 5, 2019 · Hi Guys, i have a lot of departments and with GPO i currently have each department going into a separate redirect base folder example \\\\Servername\\Redirectedfolders\\Department1 \\\\Servername\\Redirectedfolders\\Department2 most because we have a security requirement to keep these separate, any idea Apr 18, 2016 · Nothing in the event logs would suggest it doesn’t actually apply because the Application logs should show a folder redirection entry. Folder Redirection is key because it is one of the few client side extensions within Group Policy that still requires "synchronous" processing, and it is very common to find it in use in enterprises. Log back in as the user. Apr 30, 2012 · So what exactly does Folder Redirection do? Folder Redirection takes common user profile folders from C:\Users (or C:\Documents and Settings\ in Windows XP) like the Desktop or Documents and puts them on a UNC path instead of the local hard drive of the computer. marshall\Desktop Options Grant user exclusive rights to Desktop: Disabled Move the contents of Desktop to the new location: Enabled Apr 10, 2019 · In Windows Server “8” Beta, administrators can designate a set of computers, known as primary computers, for each domain user, which controls which computers use Folder Redirection, Roaming User Profiles, or both. We use folder redirection on our users' Documents Desktop and Application Data folders to redirect them to a share on a Windows 2003 Server. , to a server share. We have had an issue on one server (all servers are in same OU and have same policies applied) where folder redirection is horribly slow. Aug 25, 2021 · Folder Redirection. Dec 30, 2014 · I needed to redirect one particular subfolder within appdata\\roaming, so (in what appears to have been a bad choice) I decided to redirect all of appdata\\roaming. May 1, 2020 · Redirecting the downloads folder is a bad idea, you will load your network disk space with useless material that can very easily be replaced. Right Click on each of the redirected folders (ie. Setup syncthing on both machines, and syncronize the home directory. Feb 23, 2022 · Dear Experts Good day. Folder Redirection allows saving data regardless of storage location and separates user data from profile data decreasing the time required to log on. Jan 11, 2016 · This is good until it comes time to replace that server and you have orphaned users who are still connecting to the server without a clean way to move them over. Roaming Profiles maintains a complete copy of the profile on the server and client (s). Typically, I recommend redirecting My Jul 7, 2022 · There are two main methods of redirecting a folder. Jun 18, 2021 · I've got 7 Windows 2019 servers running RDS and we do Folder Redirection to our Synology NAS. In the GPO policy, I like to uncheck the box that sets the user up with exclusive rights to the folder so you can manage with an admin Folder redirection combined with a work folders implementation. It will also load up your backups with info that is not needed as well. So if I unlink Folder Redir on root, do this have something to say for existing users? Starting with the Sharing tab, you’ll want to share the folder by clicking the Advanced Sharing button. Selecting a Folder Redirection target. The new location can be a folder on the local computer or a directory on a file share. Firstly, you can configure a policy to redirect all users’ folders to the same place. Configuring other settings for the redirected folder. Select the User Environment Tab, select the Folder Redirection, and click Create. You may need to correct the ones that have already been configured. You will also need to ensure the systems are Azure domain joined if using To start, I would just create a GPO to redirect the Desktop and My Documents for now (include the sub folders like Photo's and such). There is one possibility - if you scripted a registry change on all stations to add in an entry to Shell Folders, defining the path to this - then it might be Reverting Folder Redirection back to local profile issue. I’ve seen where the folders are redirected, but for whatever reason, a copy remains in the profile folder. You run into permissions issues, users with huge folders that take forever to copy, etc. By default redirected folders are synced to the computer and stored as offline files. Aug 19, 2020 · The following group policy should be configured, depending on which folders you need to redirect: User Configuration --> Policies --> Windows Settings --> Folder Redirection. The Microsoft web site says , To fix this issue, install the Windows 10 cumulative update that was released on June 26, 2018 or later. Now I’m seeing some problems caused by this and have realized that redirection probably wasn’t a good idea. Aug 18, 2021 · Before disabling folder redirection go to the folder properties and select settings and tick “Move contents of [Folder] to the new location” and tick “Redirect he folder back to the local userprofile location…”. Some of our users have folder redirection, for some reason, it was set up to move the pictures folder into the Documents folder, this causes an issue with OneDrive because you can't back them up if they are combined. Do a gpupdate /force which should ask to log out due to the policy change. Create a domain group of users you want to enable Folder Redirection for. Files often freeze up and have issues. We chose as setting 'Basic - Redirect everyone's folder to the same location' and redirected to a Share folder on the server. Shawn mentioned that Internet Explorer causes an extensive number of calls on your file server when browsing so I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into this topic. Also made sure the user was in the new OU. However I haven’t seen redirection of the AppData folder for the better part of 10 years now, and there seems to be a general consensus in the EUC world, that Then reinstall Windows on a new drive, restore the directory and recreate the user. Sep 29, 2022 · It’s a good idea to do a full audit of the redirection, making sure that the every user’s folders have fully redirected. Mar 7, 2024 · Replace the redirect chain with a single 301 redirect. After test and everything looks ok. Add Is this a good idea with so many users? We have 10Gb connection across campus, and the rack space for storage. Folder Redirection data doesn't roam at all. Redirection is a good idea and works well, but there are some issues with it in our environment. ago. If you enable this policy setting, when the path to a redirected folder is changed from one network location to another and Folder Redirection is configured to move the content to the new location, instead of copying the content to the new location, the cached content is renamed in the local cache and not copied to the new location. During Citrix Synergy 2012 in San Francisco it was argued numerous times by Shawn Bass that redirecting Favorites to the home folder is a very bad idea. I think this would sort the permissions problem (as I think the roaming profile folders are created by an admin account on first logon so domain users wouldn't need access to the root of the share) but is it a good idea? Now, the idea behind folder redirection is that you can have users who will log onto different computers throughout your network, but have file that they use that are contained in certain folders, Jun 9, 2011 · A good way to automate this would be to open the “Default User” user. Mar 22, 2023 · In Group Policy Management, right-click the GPO you created (for example, Folder Redirection Settings), and then select Edit. People may have desktops, laptops, and RD Session hosts using User Profile Disks. Specify the location of folders in a user profile. Hi, I am looking at the idea of moving anyway from general folder re-direction to our server as its causing a lot of issues when used alongside offline file. As the profile gets larger synchronization can be a pain. I pitched it to my seniors, and they loved the idea of having everything stored on our local server, that way we can do constant backups. There was an edit to another policy that for some reason kicked in when I created mine, bifurcating the folder redirection and causing locations to not be accessible by users (basically a second folder redirection policy). Oct 4, 2018 · Work Folders creates a folder named “Work Folders” under “C:\users\username” and the content of this folder is synced to the server, so I created a Group Policy to redirect certain folders to “C:\users\username\Work Folders”. The redirected folders allow the users to have a unified view of their desktop and documents, which is fantastic. What are the primary folders that usually used as in folder redirection? Jun 28, 2023 · Folders that can be redirected. ” I Jun 10, 2022 · Is Folder Redirection a good idea? Folder redirection remains a popular method of user data and profile management because it can improve the user experience by achieving two things: Faster logons – redirecting AppData out of the profile reduces the amount of data required to be copied locally at user logon. We've wiped the server and started from scratch and had the same issue. Oct 29, 2014 · Redirection Through Group Policy. I want to undo all of this however the checkbox was not configured, and i already I would just make it company policy to store files on cloud storage for all users and not backup any workstations in your case. This will open the Folder Redirection window. Optionally different targets can be specified per user Nov 20, 2009 · I have a GPO for my users when they log into Windows Vista/7/2008/2008R2 they get their folders redirected (My Documents, etc) to a DFS path. This will limit the network traffic to just the files your user is actually opening, or chooses to sync on the new device. In our case, we want to backup work related documents in Documents, Pictures, Downloads, Desktop, Videos and That is also a way to get a user's interface to follow them, but it's an old, antiquated way, and Folder Redirection, the idea behind it was to replace the use of Roaming User Profiles. The folders are cached locally as offline files when the users are offline. Nov 22, 2018 · Excuse the header photo – I remember someone on Twitter once likening Folder Redirection to the Salem witch trials, because (and I quote), “they both seemed like a good idea to everyone at the time”. On a folder redirection GPO, there is an option to redirect AppData. Nick_Burns_IT_Guy. Most of those locations have a T1… If I would simply turn this option on in a GPO then whenever users would log in all the files would start to move over the T1’s (to the Sep 26, 2014 · On a side note, if you've never used folder redirection, proceed carefully. If you right-click on user configuration (it is a user config rightwell hopefully it is) > check the three boxes, look for your GPO, does it say anything. Give the setting a name. Award. Apply the GPO to a user container you are looking to apply the policy to. Feb 26, 2022 · Further, if you establish quotas for those redirected folders, it caps the amount of stuff folks can save there, avoiding that problems created when that one person thinks it's a good idea to copy 12,000 songs from their itunes library to their music folder. local\Drives\RedirectedFolders\adam. For example, it's possible This PC could get copied over, meaning everything on your machine. This is not the default configuration. There are enough things stored in AppData that we want following. 3) Install a new computer. We redirect as much as possible keeping the profile as small as possible. Documents was redirecting to users home directory as set in AD. I don’t think it will change those permissions retroactively though. • 7 yr. Caching should default to “Only the files and programs that users specify are available offline. Part one: How Folder Redirection Impacts UX & Breaks Applications Part two: Visualizing the Impact of Folder Redirection – Logon and Application Launch Part three: this article Part four: Measuring the Impact of Folder Redirection […] Jun 25, 2020 · I use folder redirection for all users. Folder Redirection allows a user's environment to follow them from computer to computer. Fill in the Remote Path. Folder redirection for user profile folders (excluding AppData) UE-v for application settings and user experience (use this instead of roaming profiles) DirectAccess for always on VPN. Remove drive mapping from AD object. Folder redirection alone for all but the desktop folder should work with minimal headaches. You can use Group Policy to configure these locations. Feb 20, 2020 · My idea is to unlink Folder Redir and create a new OU. Folder redirection for laptop users to a network share on laptop users is a non-starter. Nov 8, 2017 · Folder redirection is a nice idea, but I prefer to avoid it. Mar 20, 2023 · The new location can be a folder on the local computer or a directory on a file share. I am unable to determine if this is true if you use only redirected folders or not. We also set 'Allow or disallow use of the offline files feature' to Disabled. Folder redirection maps a local folder or a drive letter on your computer to a network share. Well, it’s mid Mar 15, 2024 · Configure Folder Redirection options with Group Policy. In your folder redirection settings for the desktop folder there is a field called "Target folder location", if you choose the option to "create a folder for each user under the root path" it will create the desktop folder inside of the employee's User folder. Folder Redirection settings are located in User Configuration-> Windows Settings -> Folder Redirections. Jul 7, 2022 · Advertisement Folder redirection settings are located in the User Configuration area of the GPO under Windows Settings. This mapping ensures that the client stores all data on the server, where it is available for backups and could be shared with co-workers. Since this is in my lab I don’t have DFS setup but in a production Environment I would strongly recommend DFS. dat hive and make the change there, then upload the Default User folder to the server’s netlogon share. We were redirecting both Desktop and Documents to server, now we want to redirect known folders to OneDrive. I’ve read that folder redirection however, actually isn’t such a bad idea. Examining the number of FR-specific hotfixes for any given Microsoft OS should give you a good idea. I have been told that get certificates to follow a user you need Roaming Profiles. In part 4 of this series, I’ll discuss configuring Folder Redirection and the available configuration options in Group Policy. Feb 25, 2016 · Right click on the folder, and select Properties. A specifically specified folder. Make sure the user has OneDrive configured, and then copy everything they need from the redirected locations to OneDrive. There is no technical issue with using DFS-R and folder redirection outside of the risk that users may connect to a different server before replication occurs. Right-click a folder that you want to redirect (for example, Documents), and then select For this reason, I keep another GPO handy that disables appdata folder redirection. The official way to redirect folders is to use the corresponding Group Policy CSE, to be found at User Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection: Using this method only 13 folders can be redirected, but that is typically sufficient. So, here’s my question. 8 Spice ups. 2. User Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection Desktop Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone’s folder to the same location) Path: \domain. Documents, Pictures, Downloads, etc. You can select between two options for the location of the redirected folder. In this new OU I place a user in and create a new GPO (disable Folder Redir. May 11, 2019 · Easy Start. Make note of whether “Move the contents of Documents to the new location” is checked and the “Policy Removal” behavior. Set the following options (for a Desktop redirection example): In case of special purpose computers such as kiosks, folder redirection must be Dec 17, 2007 · For 3, Folder redirection is a registry setting that is defined (typically) through Group Policy. You may create a new AD group and add users to it using PowerShell or the ADUC mmc snap-in: New-ADGroup munFolderRedirection -path 'OU=Groups,OU=Munich,dc=woshub,DC=com' -GroupScope Global -PassThru –Verbose. ”. Oct 7, 2020 · It’s still not uncommon for me to come across setups with Citrix Profile Management and folder redirection of the documents and desktop folders, occasionally I also see the start menu and favorites folders being redirected. , has disappeared. Folder Redirection in Group Policy allows a systems administrator to redirect certain folders from a user’s profile to a file server. Users can literally log into any machine and have their user experience follow them. User Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection\Pictures. Indeed, Folder Redirection was once thought of as a necessary part of almost every EUC solution. Click on Properties. Dec 14, 2014 · Running RSOP on the end user computer can be a good way to go too. Hope my message finds you well. was to Sep 29, 2022 · It’s a good idea to do a full audit of the redirection, making sure that the every user’s folders have fully redirected. Open the DEM Management Console. 4. ). Next steps. 1. 3. Offline files seems to keep corrupting meaning users will delete folders and then they will randomly come back which is of course rather annoying. I don’t have any VDI desktop OS. So, as I’ve tested updating a few machines, the user’s Outlook signatures, some printer functions, login info for Spark, etc. Offline folders sucks. Other advantages include: [2] Under Microsoft Windows, the redirection is often performed by Group Policy, [3] when used in an Active Directory environment. Sometimes people enable Folder Redirection on a higher level in Group Policy and when you remove it, it doesn’t actually get removed completely. SCCM for user based Software catalogue. In this video, learn how to configure Folder Redirection. From past experience, it rarely works perfectly. Oct 7, 2014 · Traditionally, shops that used Group Policy Folder Redirection, would redirect a user’s profile folders, such as Documents, Music, Videos, etc. It’s kind of like backing up the browser cache folders, there is no real need to keep those. . If they understand folder redirection and want to manually redirect their folders, that's fine since we don't block manual redirection. JT9223 • 4 yr. Instead of Page 1 > Page 2 > Page 3 > Page 4, the redirect becomes Page 1 > Page 4. That said, it might not be a good idea to specify all the Desktop for backup because there are other hidden folders and links in that location. When a Folder Redirection is created, the move option is checked by default and the Policy Removal is set to When the user’s redirected folder is empty on the File Server (I’ve no idea how that happened), removing the GPO nukes all redirected folders as the server is considered the source of truth. Folder Redirection lets administrators redirect the path of a folder to a new location. Apr 5, 2017 · Edit the policy. It's location is static, but it's redirected from the standard location (the local hard drive) to a different location (a network share). Profiles get deleted from workstations on nightly reboot and shut down. Click the “Share this folder” checkbox and the share name should fill in automatically. That copy can create confusion if the user – or software – access that copy. Oct 9, 2012 · 1. Uncheck the exclusive access box and make sure admins are on the root folder and you are good to go. This would allow the user the benefit of having offline access to their files, when not connected to the server, while at the same time, giving the user a way of backing up their Dec 23, 2021 · Here's how to enable primary computers for Folder Redirection: In Group Policy Management, right-click the GPO you created when doing the initial configuration of Folder Redirection and/or Roaming User Profiles (for example, Folder Redirection Settings or Roaming User Profiles Settings), and then select Edit. In the Target tab of the window, you can select the setting to use for redirection, as shown in Figure 9. Folder Redirection. In the Group Policy Management Editor window, navigate to User Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection. Thanks Rod, I’m scared that is the true best practice, but boy does it We combine folder redirection and roaming profiles and if you have the GPO's ready it really isn't hard to set up. Aug 22, 2007 · This allows administrators to redirect some users’ folders to pre-configured directories, that the users do not have sufficient NTFS Permission to alter, and to redirect other users to folders that are self maintained. May 1, 2014 · All folder redirection does is point the local library to another server location. IF the Location is not correct, Then Click on the "Restore Default"-Button. I have an issue with a redirection policy : My company used the folder re-direction policy to move the documents from Local user profile to a server path \server%… Jan 17, 2008 · In theory - this should be easy - but unfortunately - I would think that unless the folder is in Shell Folders (like My Music is) - then the folder will not be able to be excluded. Nov 12, 2014 · This is the third in a series of articles on folder redirection by Aaron Parker, Helge Klein and Shawn Bass. To enable redirection of one of the four folders, follow these steps: 1. Sep 2, 2015 · Basically folder redirection, means the data is up on a file share somewhere. 3 for each redirected folder to verify the Folders location. Alternatively, you can redirect folders based on group membership of the logged on user. I created a new folder redirection GPO along with a test OU and changed the setting under the target tab “Target folder location” to redirect to the local userprofile location”. Folder Redirection enables users and administrators to redirect the path of a known folder to a new location, manually or by using Group Policy. Click the Permissions tab. ) And link it to the new OU. Users interact with files in the redirected folder as if it still existed on the local drive. I created a folder redirection GPO. Policy Renoval. As far as I understand, roaming profiles merely just transport user profiles across different computers by uploading/downloading said profiles during log off/login. Jun 26, 2018 · Redirect Windows known folders to OneDrive. This prevents Google and other bots from crawling the redirect chains. This facilitates better management, backup and recovery of the redirected data. 29 . You have to manually edit Group Policy files to clear it out. Carrying the old profile is not always a good idea. and then wait until the group policy has been updated in all users and then simply disable folder redirection . This is working very well. For instance, saved credentials are that are stored in the Windows Vault (which is stored in AppData\Roaming). Most of those locations have a T1… If I would simply turn this option on in a GPO then whenever users would log in all the files would start to move over the T1’s (to the One Drive folder redirection RDS advice. Right-click the folder name and select Properties. One thing that may assist from an end user compute perspective, is enabling the WKF move on the gpo in which the folder redirection is setup, and also make sure the silently sign user in policy is enabled, so users don’t need to do anything. Setup a Work Folders share, push it out to users, then redirect their files into their local Work Folders folder. Nov 15, 2013 · Question for Folder Redirection: If a user has saved files to their homeshare and saved another file with the same name and type to their documents folder on a PC. If the Folder Redirection CSE is used, it forces the user into synchronous processing mode. Dec 19, 2016 · Folder redirection can be setup as just a direct redirection where if the user is disconnected from the network they no longer have access to the redirected folders or you can enable offline files for these redirected folders. For example, you can redirect the Documents folder, which is usually stored on a local drive, to a network location. If the file share is unavailable, the folder is unavailable. Therefore we chose to use folder redirection (Desktop, Appdata, Documents, Favorites, Links and Searches) . We have several user's who work from home most of the time and connect to work via an ISA 2006 VPN Jun 29, 2016 · Roaming profiles and redirected folders are 2 different things. Is Folder Redirection a good idea? Folder redirection remains a popular method ofRead More → This tutorial recommends putting the redirected folders in the same location as where the roaming profile is stored on the server. Here's a link that describes some more pros/cons. Desktop to a share on a server. Aug 15, 2018 · As has been discussed before , Windows 10 version 1803 can break folder redirection of AppData. Replace internal links to redirected pages with direct links to the final URL. When properly implemented it they are up and running in minutes and most don’t really notice the time it takes for documents to download the first time. ob ef ll vo cy om om dz pz fw