Favorites and roaming profiles

[acrobson]

Evening,

 

I have had a brief search of the archives, however cannot find anything which matches my exact question. I have recently introduced roaming profiles within the Server 2003 environment; however users favorites are still being pull back from the local profile within the machine c:\docs and sets\user. Meaning when the user 'roams' there main favorites don’t follow. Also, when they go to 'add' a favorite through explorer, it places the new addition within the local copy of the favorites as appose the users 'my documents' roaming favorites.

 

Any tips, I have been looking at the GPO for answers, however, failed so far.

[FN-GM]

This logon script will re-direct them to a folder in the home drive, does the trick for us.

 

' Variable Initilisations
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
strUserName = objNetwork.UserName
strRegKey = "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Favorites"
strRedirectionPath = "T:\Favorites"

' Write the new Favorites path
objShell.RegWrite strRegKey, strRedirectionPath

' Variable Destruction
Set objShell = Nothing
Set objNetwork = Nothing

[acrobson]

That's great, thanks. I shall give it a try.

[FN-GM]

You could also use this code to make the folder if it doesn't exist.

 

If Not fso.FolderExists("T:\Favorites") Then 
  call noFavorites
End If

sub noFavorites
filesys.CreateFolder "T:\Favorites"
END sub

[Michael]

You shouldn't have to do anything that's the strange thing! I use roaming profiles at all my sites within a 2003/XP network. Within AD I specify the roaming profile path \\SERVERNAME\Profiles$\Username with Full Control for all users on this folder.

 

Is the NTUSER file set as NTUSER.DAT or NTUSER.MAN?

 

There aren't really any Favourite GPOs in windows, other than disallowing users adding/creating them altogether.

 

As an experiment, if you copy a shortcut and copy it within a users Favourites folder on the server, then they logon, does the Favourite appear?

[FN-GM]

Your right, it sounds like users are not logging off properly.

[acrobson]

Michael,

 

Yes, I have tried adding a favorite in order to test etc, that’s what got me thinking in the first place, when I add a favorite with roaming profiles in place, the new favorite only shows up in the C:\docs and sets\user as appose to on the users 'My docs' on the actual server home drives. I have just been playing with folder re-direction etc, however with the sync etc, which just over complicates things totally.

 

As for logging off properly, yes, the users are logging off correctly, as currently this is only be trial within my lab environment. Thankfully!

[Michael]

When a user logs on, the roaming profile is copied from the server to the local machine, which would be C:\Documents and Settings\

 

You can then add your Favourite, then logoff. This information is then copied or merged back with the server copy.

 

Now if information isn't being saved, then it is either a permissions issue (the Profiles$ share should have Full Control for Everyone), or the NTUSER file is named NTUSER.MAN which would forget any changes, hence the Favourite not roaming as you would expect.