Folder Redirection

Making sure users always have access to their data is critical for business success. On Windows systems, roaming profiles have long been the answer, but a new method has become more reliable since the release of Windows 2000.

I'm Bill Detwiler, and during this IT Dojo video, we'll look at the folder redirection feature, which has continued to mature in XP and Vista.

Back in the days of Windows NT, the roaming profile was all the rage. A user could log on to any computer within the company network and Windows would automatically download the settings for his or her individual profile, including personal desktop settings and other user-experience items such as shortcuts.

The problem with roaming profiles is that they consume a lot of bandwidth, which can slow down the network for other users. The larger your network, the more roaming profiles can affect overall performance.

Folder redirection, on the other hand, is a feature that allows specified user folders to redirect to a central server location. For example, you could redirect a user's Documents folder to a network share. Microsoft introduced the feature in Windows 2000 and built on the concept in XP and Vista.

Folder redirection has several benefits:

First, it doesn't require large amounts of individual profile data to be moved across the network -- dragging down performance and increasing login and logout times.

Second, it provides reliable data availability, because your users are working from a single source.

And third, disaster recovery is easier to manage, because your users are storing their data on a network server allows the IT department to back up the data as part of a normal routine. So, if their desktop hard drive dies, their data is safe.

At this point, you might have noticed the one drawback to using folder redirection -- users must be connected to the network to access their data. This can be a problematic for those who regularly work while not connected to the network, such as frequent travelers with laptops. Luckily in Windows XP or later and Windows Server 2003 or later, any redirected shell folders such as My Documents, Desktop, Start Menu, and Application Data are automatically made available offline using Offline File technology.

Now that we've covered why you may want to employ folder redirection, let's look at the how.

Folder Redirection is handled by Group Policy, so first, we need to start the Group Policy MMC snap-in by clicking Start | Programs | Administrative Tools, and then Group Policy Management, which should exist if you have the Group Policy snap-in installed. If not, you'll need to download and install it from Microsoft.

With the Group Policy Management console open, right-click the domain or OU you want to link the policy to, and click Create and Link a GPO Here. When the New GPO dialog box appears, enter a name, such as "Folder Redirect" into the Name field and click OK. The new policy should now appear under the list of linked group policy objects.

Right-click the new Folder Redirect policy and click Edit to open the Group Policy console for your new GPO. Expand the User Configuration, Windows Settings, and Folder Redirection nodes. You should now see icons for the personal folder that can be redirected.

Select the folder you wish to redirect, right-click it, and choose Properties.

On the Target tab in the Properties dialog box, you'll need to select a Setting for redirection from the drop-down list. Your options are:

* Not configured, which is the default settings and means that redirection won't occur on the folder;
* Basic, which will redirect everyone s folder to the same location;
* And Advanced, which will redirect folders to different locations based on a user's group membership. Using this option will require you to add specific security groups and paths for the redirected folders.

We're going to stick with basic for now.

Once you've selected the redirection setting, you must specify the Target folder location from the next drop-down list. Here your options are to:

* Create a folder for each user under this root path: Now, this is the default and will do just what it says.
* Or you can use Redirect to the following location, which places all redirected data in the folder at the path specified.
* Redirect to the local user profile folder: This will redirect the users data back to their local user profile location.
* And finally, if you've already deployed home directories, you can choose Redirect to the user's home directory, which can help you maintain compatibility with your existing home directory environment.

Once the destination options are made, type the network share path where the data will be redirected or click Browse to locate it.

Once you're finished on this tab, you can use the Settings tab to configure exclusive rights to redirected content and the handling of existing content in the original location. Once you're finished configuring all the settings, click OK.

I hope this video has shown you how folder redirection can help you provide users access to their data no matter where they are.

Just remember that the information I've provided here is a starting point. I'll link to additional resources for properly configuring and troubleshooting Folder Redirection within the IT Dojo blog.