Redirection of My Documents Folder

[fhvac]

Hello all, I recently purchased a server and installed Windows 2003 SBS, needless to say I am very impressed by the wizards that it provided.


Anyway...
I set up folder redirection of the My Documents folder, it works, however the folder synchronizes during login/logoff and shows a "sync" icon on every file/folder in My Documents. This seems nice although I can assume what will happen in the future when users have very large files on the network. So how would I disable synchronization and keep it as a mere redirected folder that can be accessed from any location specific to the user name?

On the same topic: I would like to create a shared folder that would be accessible to all users, as lets say a location where users just dump there files for everyone to access, like pictures, mp3s, ... etc. Non critical files basically.

Basically besides the my documents redirection, I would like to create a slew of mounted network locations that every user will see when they go to My Computer and have it update at login when I create a new drive, and mount it to the specified drive letter accordingly.

Thanks

 

[markdmac]

I don't follow your concern. If the users have place large files on a network share, they would not be replicated locally unless you have specified that folder for offline use.

As for creating a common shared folder. Just create a folder on the server. Right click it. Choose Properties. Click the Sharing tab and choose to share the folder giving it a name. Under permissions, assign Authenticated Users or a more restricted group full control. On the NTFS Security permissions for the folder give the users all Change rights (they don't need full control as that lets them assign permissions). Next, give everyone a mapping to the folder by assigning a drive letter. Refer to my login script FAQ for details on how to automate that. faq329-5798

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[LWComputingMVP]

You can use markdmac's scripts... or you can keep it simple - just making a batch file (file with a list of commands that ends in .bat or .cmd) and place it in AD Group Policies or in C:\Windows\Sysvol\sysvol\<domainname>\scripts folder.

To map network drives, it's a single one line command:

if not exist x:\ net use x: \\server\sharename /p:n

That basically says, if there is no X:\ drive, then use X: as a link to \\server\sharename but do not make the share permanent (/p:n). You could omit the /p:n but then if you decide to remap or remove the share later you would have to include a line to remove it.

I also recommend you use high drive letters - media card readers tend to use 4 drive letters... so if you tried to assign G: as a network drive, it would fail if there were a physical drive (the media card reader - added now or later) already assigned. example, it's not unreasonable to see a person's system have:

C: Partition1
D: Partition2
E: CD Burner
F: DVD Burner/Player
G: Media Card Reader 1
H: Media Card Reader 2
I: Media Card Reader 3
J: Media Card Reader 4
K: USB Flash Drive
L: Digital Camera or other device with storage

So, while this could be a somewhat extreme setup, it's not hard to imagine a computer savvy person or an enthusiast using this many drive letters. So I recommend putting any network drives on N: or later (or better still, start from Z: down).

 

[fhvac]

These are some great scripts thank you very much.

Hey, lets say the user installs a program such as a download accelorator and during setup it asks where it will save downloaded files and I want the default location to save downloaded files to the shared mapped X drive.

Is it possible for installations of future programs to know what the default directory is or can I set up the program on the server and have it installed as a package when the user logs in with the specified setting? A little to complicated i think...

Thanks

 

[markdmac]

The download directory defaults to the last used folder. I don't know of any setting to force that. You can of course distribute software via AD GPOs. Best if you have an MSI file, but for regualr EXE files you can create a ZAP file.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;231747&amp;sd=tech

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[TechSoEasyMVP]

On the same topic: I would like to create a shared folder that would be accessible to all users, as lets say a location where users just dump there files for everyone to access, like pictures, mp3s, ... etc. Non critical files basically.

The default installation of SBS2003 automatically configures your SharePoint companyweb (

http://companyweb).

This would be the ideal place to store these kind of files, since it includes pre-configured picture libraries and other useful components. It's also easily accessible from the Internet through Remote Web Workplace (

http://sbsurl.com/rww)

or even directly.

Hey, lets say the user installs a program such as a download accelorator and during setup it asks where it will save downloaded files and I want the default location to save downloaded files to the shared mapped X drive

Are you serious? Do you really want your users downloading stuff especially things that install ActiveX? You need to remember that this is not your home computer system! Because allowing this kind of behavior will cost you real money in down-time to fix whatever problems are caused by allowing users to do this. Office networks are important tools that enable you to operate your business... they aren't entertainment portals.

Just do a simple calculation by estimating how much per hour it costs your organization to have your computers be down. There are 2080 hours per year, so a person earning $25,000.00 + 15% for taxes and benefits earns about $14.00 per hour. So, then you can estimate your organization's total payroll...which if it's $400,000.00 per year, means that it costs you $224.00 per hour for ever hour that you're down.

Even if your system doesn't go down due to that kind of activity, consider that if it slows things down so that people are staring at their screens instead of working because they are waiting on the system, it's just like a faucet that drips in your house for a year, and you don't realize that in the course of a year, it dripped over 3,000 gallons of water... down the drain.

Just my 2c

Jeff
TechSoEasy

 

[markdmac]

The big thing about using SharePoint is that it doesn't natively support individual file restore. If you have multiple versions of a file you can track and restore file versions, but a deleted file is deleted. The SharePoint solution for restoring that is to mount a backup copy of the entire database and grab the file. Totally rediculous, I had a customer that was a law firm with well over 200,000 documents in SharePoint. Such restores were not an option.

The solution that I came up with (and the Microsoft SBS guys went nuts over for its creativeness)was to mount a WebDav folder to the SharePoint site. I then used RoboCopy to make copies of the documents at scheduled times to USB drives that we would swap out each night. Using this method, and an intelligent vbscript to control RoboCopy, I had the ability to restore any files I wanted instantly similar to ShadowCopy. With the two drives we swapped out I was able to grab file versions going back two weeks.

I agree with you TechSoeasy about letting people install software. SBS will automatically add users to the local admin group when you set them up. This is so you can get all the software configred as needed, but should be removed after setup completes. Not enough admins lock the boxes down after that.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

 

[TechSoEasyMVP]

Mark,

WSS 3.0 has a recycle bin and document recovery. So, it's been fixed. The only problem now is that WSS 3.0 isn't really compatible with SBS2003. You can certainly install it and migrate document libraries, but it can't replace the companyweb right now... or it may never be able to.

There is a pseudo "recycle bin" work-around for WSS 2.0 which does essentially the same thing you have done with robocopy.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/02/RecycleBinforWSS/

Another cool thing with WSS 3.0 is that you can sync a document library with Outlook via Groove. So, finally there will be some good use for those 80GB hard drives that are in every workstation!

http://www.scottjamison.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,b0690672-6fd0-403a-91ae-6e2971363c54.aspx

As for users as local admins, I leave them as such... but use Software Restriction policies to prevent anything from being installed. I like that much better because then I can still easily push out stuff that would install when they logged on.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

 

[markdmac]

Nice info on WSS 3.0 Jeff, thanks for sharing. I will need to play with it.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript