Default save location set to desktop?

[HCC]

Hi,

 

For some reason all our windows 7 laptops and PCs are set to desktop as the default save location. It only affects students and not staff or admins.

I'm sure its group policy related, but any hint about where to look would be useful...

 

My initial investigation shows that when a student tries to save it comes up with desktop. They just click save. It then says you can't save here would you like to save in My documents instead. they click yes and then it says this action has been canceled due to restrictions on this device. If they save to computer h:\ it works fine, but of course they don't do this, and end up losing their file by clicking close, don't save.

If they click their name in the start menu they get a list of all the folders (documents, desktop, music etc) but most of them either fail with access denied or the restriction message.

 

I think it might be because I tried to disable the horrid 'libraries' feature. I've managed to hide the libraries documents, videos etc within 'libraries' but not the link on the places bar. I'm going to try removing the guid filter to see if thats to blame tomorrow.

 

Redirection of documents, music and videos is in place in the group policy file. under 'folder redirection'. Is there somewhere else I need to check or do you think its the disabling of the libraries thats to blame?

 

Thanks,

[amckinley]

Which program are they trying to save from? Each program can be modified to default to a certain folder

[free780]

An rsop.msc or better still gpresult /h gp.html will hunt down the redirection. Redirection will still work with libraries left on.

[Valyyn]

Might be worth checking your program shortcuts, specifically the "Start in:" section. By default it's normally set to the install folder, but you can set it elsewhere. It's possible that the student shortcuts have the path to the desktop in that bit.

[HCC]

OK, so I removed the 'Disable Known Folders' feature and now all programs default to libraries documents. But this folder is empty and users can't save here (could be profile location?, we use mandatory profiles for students)". They get the error "to use this library you must first create a folder" if they try to create a folder they get "unable to create new folder file system error (512)"

I checked the event viewer and it says the folder redirect for documents etc was processed successfully.

 

So I don't get it? why is it not choosing h:\my documents as default?

[HCC]

Some more info might help ....

 

Our home drive structure is :

Root

Year7\Username

Year8\Username

Year9\Username

Year10\Username

Year11\Username

Staff\Username

 

So the redirection policy is set as advanced based on group, create folder under root then has all the groups defined and unc e.g Year7 group \\server\home\Year7\%username%\My Documents. The settings tab has no ticks for move folder, grant permission etc and the option to redirect to local if policy is removed.

In the XP policy redirect its set as h:\My documents so XP computers are unaffected by the location since it's mapped by the user home drive setting. I couldn't do this in the folder redirection for 7 because if I type h:\my documents it changes it to my home directory (UNC) when I click OK. I can't use %homepath% setting as this would cause the horrible desktop.ini problem and call all the folders documents.

 

I'm still confused that the event viewer says the redirection applied OK when it doesn't work. and rsop says it redirected as well.

I tried removing the user profile path on a test user to avoid the mandatory profile in case that was the cause but got the same library as default problem with a local profile.

[HCC]

I managed to solve it. I changed it to basic redirection and used h:\ as the location despite it's warnings.

I also had to disable offline files as this caused a problem where they couldn't create or modify folders.

 

I think the root of the problem was that I'm using a DFS share for the home drives, and the redirect didn't like it.