Folder redirection question

[_techie_]

Just been playing around with folder redirection on the start menu using group policy.
Very happy so far, and everything seems to be working okay. :-)
However, I have a question which you might be able to answer?

I have found out that you can redirect to different folders for different security groups, which is great, but is there a way to do the following:

Have one start menu for both students and teaching staff, which is common between the two. Then append extra start menu items just for teaching staff to the common start menu, when teaching staff logon?

Is this possible? I was hoping that I could reduce the need for duplicate items being required in seperate folders for students and staff, when all I really need to do, is add the extra items for staff.

Cheers for any response!

Regards
_techie_

[riffleman]

While it's a great idea, unfortunately as far as I am aware it's not possible to append additional items for one group over another.

[_techie_]

I have an idea that I could try, might give it a shot tomorow, and report back.
We have pupils and staff in domain users, but also have seperate groups for pupils, and staff, so might try something, and see what happens :-)

[glennda]

I have an idea that I could try, might give it a shot tomorow, and report back.
We have pupils and staff in domain users, but also have seperate groups for pupils, and staff, so might try something, and see what happens :-)

This might work

Redirect all to \\server\share\startmenu

have all folders inside this including the extra's for staff then restrict using NTFS permissions the folders you don't want the students to see.

I have it setup so that all students user group has deny access on the Sims Applications folder on all our PC's in the school as we deploy sims on the image.

[SYNACK]

I was also thinking like glennda above, especially if you have Server 2008 as then you can turn on Access based enumeration (ABE) on the share which should mean that users can only see things they have access to.

[riffleman]

Restricting folder or shortcuts permissions within the redirected folder doesn't work. The system throws a wobbly about not having access and results in an unusable start menu. (I seem to remember doing this sort of thing before)

[SYNACK]

Restricting folder or shortcuts permissions within the redirected folder doesn't work. The system throws a wobbly about not having access and results in an unusable start menu. (I seem to remember doing this sort of thing before)

But were you using ABE, the system should not even know the other icons exist if the users don't have access to them.

[glennda]

One thing you have to keep in mind is that if your file server becomes unavailable/is running slow it will cause all the computers to become pretty much unusable.

[bandgeekmafia78]

One thing you have to keep in mind is that if your file server becomes unavailable/is running slow it will cause all the computers to become pretty much unusable.

Thats a very good point. It all depends on how much faith you have in your file server.

[riffleman]

But were you using ABE, the system should not even know the other icons exist if the users don't have access to them.

No, it was using W2K3 and XP, so the situation may have changed under W2K8.

[psydii]

One thing you have to keep in mind is that if your file server becomes unavailable/is running slow it will cause all the computers to become pretty much unusable.

Such as often occurs in wireless/mobile environents. If you want a consistent experience and have laptops I believe that common network redirected start menu/desktops are a bad idea. However they seem fine if you're only planning on having wired desktops.

Another thing to keep in mind is the enumeration of the start menu and desktops can actually **cause** the performance issues if your server's are already under stress (e.g. heavily virtualised, or under resourced).

[_techie_]

Well...I spent most of Friday fiddling around with both redirected start menu's and group policy preferences, with not much luck I might add, so will stick with our original system of scripted start menu's at logon.
Does anyone know how to manage the pop-ups that occur when logging on (we use an executable, for a login script), and wanted to find out how to setup trusted locations on the network, using group policy.
I have already found the policy to trust printers etc, which I will dig out soon. This is for Win7x86 btw.

Regards
_techie_