Chrome bookmarks

[Sheridan]

We're using chrome a lot more now and I would like users bookmarks to be saved in their home drive -we managed this with IE with a simple registry setting, but I can't find a way to do this in chrome.

 

We're using the admx templates and you can redirect the users whole chrome user data folder to their home drive, but that seems to cause issues and isn't generally recommended by google - and I really only want to redirect the bookmarks to a network location, and not implement roaming profiles either!

 

Is there a registry hack or more elegant way of doing this?

[clodhopper]

Are you signed up for google apps ??

 

I so just get the users to login to Google & then there bookmarks etc will sync to the cloud & then available where ever they are even at home.

 

This is how we manage it as we're a Google site

[edutech4schools]

same as above. Has worked well for years.

[Sheridan]

We are using google apps but its through a third party vle so I'm not whether that will work or not?

[Arthur]

If syncing to the user's Google account isn't an option, you could create a logoff script to backup the bookmarks file to their home drive?

 

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks

[Sheridan]

Hmm logoff script might be a good compromise - I'll have a look and see how big that folder is in case its causes a login delay!

[Arthur]

My 'Default' Chrome folder is almost 600MB, so you probably wouldn't want to backup the entire folder - just the bookmarks file which is several hundred KB?

[AJWhite1970]

Run Chrome with this command line:-

 

"c:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="r:\Chrome\User Data" --disk-cache-dir="r:\Chrome\Cache" -- "%1"

 

It makes the folder structure on the redirected network drive the first time it's run so no need to pre-populate the folders.

 

Issues:-

 

1) You need to change the default application keys HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ChromeHTML\shell\open\command and HKLM\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\Google Chrome\shell\open\command

2) It's very version specific, you can't access a profile from a newer version of Chrome from an older version of Chrome so all workstations would have to be on the exact version of Chrome

3) You get a warning message each time you start saying performance on a network drive may cause corruption etc. If anyone knows how to suppress this, let me know

 

Andrew

[Sheridan]

I've gone with the login script solution to just copy the bookmarks file. Ironically even though google give you the tools to redirect the user data to a network folder, it causes loads of issues with locks and warns you that it might cause instability etc (which of course everyone immediately jumped onto and 'noticed' it was running slower )

 

Cheers for the advice and info on this. I think the login script will work better as the bookmarks file shouldn't get too big!

[Arthur]

Issues

The issues you listed are exactly why we didn't bother redirecting Chrome's profile to the network.

 

You get a warning message each time you start saying performance on a network drive may cause corruption etc. If anyone knows how to suppress this, let me know

The warning message can be disabled by adding the following to your master_preferences file or the users preferences file.

 

"network_profile": {
 "last_warning_time": "1363797548",
 "warnings_left": 0
},

[comps]

We're happily using Chrome with redirected folders just using the settings in the ADMX files, granted it did take us a long time to get here though:

 

I came across this document by the NSA, yes that's right... the NSA, detailing how to setup Chrome in a Windows based enterprise environment: http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/app/Deploying_and_Securing_Google_Chrome_in_a_Windows_Enterprise.pdf

 

Section 3.1 on page 8 is probably what you are looking for. I think the bit I was getting wrong is the variable names that Chrome uses for folder paths, I was using the Windows variables and in fact Chrome has its own. (There is a table showing what they are on the bottom of page 8 & top of 9.)

[Sheridan]

I used this list for the variables Chrome variables

 

However the redirect of user data to a network path a) seems to cause more problems than it solves b) seems to be frowned upon by google as they flag up a disclaimer when you do use a network path!

 

I opted for the login script to copy the Bookmarks file back and forth instead - works fine as long as you make sure the destination directory is created first for the first login a user does on a PC, otherwise the file doesn't get copied over until the next login.