Start Menu alternative in Win 7

[pirgeri]

Hi,

 

We used to have a Start Menu redirect to a folder in XP (using GP), worked perfectly. Win 7 shows an empty Start Menu with the same setting. (server 2k8 r2)

Is there any alternative to this? I've been trying to make a folder on the desktop, or icons but nothing works.

 

Any suggestion, idea, direction would be appreciated!

[DJ-1701]

We've redirect the Start Menu in Windows 7 (and in our Windows 10 test environment) without issue. We created the following root folders:

 

C:\ProgramData\School\Students\Start Menu (for Students) and

C:\ProgramData\School\Staff\Start Menu (for Staff).

 

Inside these folders we also created the subdirectory \Programs\Startup (as this was needed to work).

 

Out of interest where are you directing to?

[pirgeri]

to \\srv2011\StartMenu$

[3s-gtech]

Hmm. You may need to apply the folder redirection registry patch (which deletes a number of keys) to get it to work. This is a common problem. Also make sure that you have the layout correct, with a folder called Programs inside the root folder.

[LeMarchand]

Used to use that technique here (S2012R2 + W7 clients) without a problem. Also had a login script that would use a third party program to auto expand the "All Programs" bit of the Menu.

 

Unfortunately I only ever got that technique to work with W8.1 when the initial links were baked into the image - could never get the xml method to take. Desktop redirection with W8 seem to work OK, though.

[pirgeri]

Not sure what's i'm doing wrong, but so far nothing worked.

[DavetheITguy]

we have all our redirected desktops and start menus running from our DC>Netlogon. I've found this to be much more resilient in which everyone has access to the netlogon folder and the permissions are all correct, its replicated between both DCs, if one DC dies the redirection will still work as the other DC kicks in. This is the main reason we never put our redirection on file servers or other servers.

 

Hope this help. If you need any info, let me know.

[JoHimself]

Have you unchecked "Grant the user exclusive rights to Start Menu" on the "Settings" tab?

 

Are you redirecting all users to the same Start Menu folder?

 

What does Event Log say?

[pirgeri]

Ok. After few hours of struggle i got nowhere. (i have the list of programs i want in "all programs" but I can't get rid of the installed program folders)

Let me rephrase the solution I'm looking for (Start Menu might not be it, it could be desktop or another folder).

 

I'd like to give access to a list of programs in win7 for a AD object (student) but nothing else. They can run the programs, open and save to their own folder and that's it.

 

Any recommended steps on that?

Really appreciate that you are reading this.

[JoHimself]

The list of installed programs can be found under C:\programdata\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu (the old "All Users" start menu)