Redirected My Documents confusion

[Andie]

We have redirected My Documents and have mandatory profiles. However, I have recently noticed that strange things are happening. Files sometimes get saved in the outside of My Documents. Clicking on My Docs on desktop means that these files don't appear. The only way I know that these files are there is by navigating to the user's folder in the shared data folder on the server. We have settings in AD and GP, which don’t exactly match and I’m guessing that is where the problem lies. We have changed from Classlink 2000 to Windows Server 2003.

I think our mandatory profiles are set so that any profile on the local machine is removed on logoff. All our user data is in a shared User Data folder on the D: drive of the server. Teachers and Students have separate folders in the User Data folder. Within the Teachers folder and the Students folder are the individual user's folders. However, once a user has logged on, a folder called My Documents is being created. Some programs appear to be saving things outside of this My Documents folder; they are just saving into the user’s folder.

The GP settings for folder redirection are as follows:

User Configuration>Windows Settings>Folder Redirection>My Documents

Setting: Basic (Redirect everyone’s folder to the same location)
Path: \\servername\User Data\Students\%USERNAME%\My Documents

Options:
Grant user exclusive rights = Enabled
Move contents of My Documents = Enabled
Policy Removal Behaviour = Leave Contents

(We substitute Teachers for Students in the path in the Teachers policy).

However, in the user account profile settings in Active Directory, we have mapped the home folder to drive S: with the following path:

\\servername\User Data\Students\%USERNAME%

That is, we don't have the My Documents bit at the end.

Are the two paths causing confusion? If so, would it be best/acceptable to add My Documents to the mapped drive part of the user account properties rather than removing it from the GP settings path?

[plexer]

I just redirect my documents to their home folder by unc no need to include another my documents folder.

Also:

Grant user exclusive rights = Enabled

This may cause you issues.

Ben

[maniac]

On our network we have H:\ mapped as the users home folder, set in the 'profile' area in each username e.g

\\storage\student data$\2005\05studentname

Then in group policy, the my documents folder is set to;
Basic - Redirect everyone's folder to the same location.

With the second box being set to;
Redirect to the users home folder.

Grant user exclusive rights is unchecked (I use XCACLS to set the security on every users folder)

Move contents to new location is un-cehcked.

Mike.

[Andie]

I just redirect my documents to their home folder by unc no need to include another my documents folder.

Also:

Grant user exclusive rights = Enabled

This may cause you issues.

Ben

1. If I change the path so that My Documents isn't included explicitly, what effect will that have on users already on the system?

2. Likewise, if I add My Documents to the path in the mapped drive part of the Profile tab in the user account properties, what effect will that have on current users?

3. What issues will Grant user exclusive rights cause?

[plexer]

If any of your users home folders are actually owned by someone other than the user i.e Domain Admins becasue you've had to take ownership to move them or something then using grant excelusives rights = enables means that the folder will not get redirected.

In the event log you will see a failure.

Changing the path to not include my documents just means that for existing users their my documents will be redirected to their h:\ folder location and within that folder they may have another folder also called my documents.

You could use a login script to move the contents up a level into their home folder and the delete the spurious my documents folder.

Ben