Create Custom ADM Template

[robbied69]

I need to create an ADM Template I think so I can redirect people's My Music and My Pictures folder. We currently use Folder Redirection, but people are putting so much music and pictures on the servers its getting ridiculous. I want to create a template whereby I can redirect these folders to the local user profile.

I found some documentation from Microsoft to create a adm file but it says its for Windows 2000/NT and I'm using Server 2003.

Does anyone know any links as to where I can get the syntax to complete this.

P.s. I have tried a vbscript to this but it didn't really work too well.

Thanks in advance.

Rob

[powdarrmonkey]

Writing Custom ADM Files for System Policy Editor

Although the article says it is for 2000, the technique is the same.

Note though that if you intend to alter the redirection keys, they are outside of the policy tree so they are non-reversible. You will also not see anything in the template when loaded in group policy, to show the options switch off filtering of items that are not fully-manageable.

[robbied69]

Writing Custom ADM Files for System Policy Editor

Note though that if you intend to alter the redirection keys, they are outside of the policy tree so they are non-reversible. You will also not see anything in the template when loaded in group policy, to show the options switch off filtering of items that are not fully-manageable.

Sorry I don't understand what you mean by the bottom bit. I don't think I'm changing a particular key. Wouldn't changing My Music and My Pictures involve new reg keys? or does my music and my pictures just get encapsulated in folder redirection?

[cookie_monster]

We wen't down the line of making these changes in our VB login script this way the changes can be undone quickly.

WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Favorites", "U:\Favorites", "REG_EXPAND_SZ"
WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Favorites", "U:\Favorites", "REG_SZ"

WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal", "U:\", "REG_EXPAND_SZ"
WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal", "U:\", "REG_SZ"

WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\My Pictures", "U:\My Pictures", "REG_EXPAND_SZ"
WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\My Pictures", "U:\My Pictures", "REG_SZ"

WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\My Music", "U:\My Music", "REG_EXPAND_SZ"
WSHShell.RegWrite "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\My Music", "U:\My Music", "REG_SZ"

[Newton]

I found a until on the web that converts a .reg file to an .adm template, I belive it was called reg2adm ort something like, seamed to work fine.

[powdarrmonkey]

Sorry I don't understand what you mean by the bottom bit. I don't think I'm changing a particular key. Wouldn't changing My Music and My Pictures involve new reg keys? or does my music and my pictures just get encapsulated in folder redirection?

No, they involve changing existing keys, which are all held in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\UserShellFolders from memory. This is outside of the tree which can be fully managed (ie reversed later), HKCU\Software\Policies. Therefore, any changes made outside this tree are tattooed into the users registry until you replace them with some other value; setting the policy back to 'not defined' does not put them back how they were.