Mapping Local My Docs to H Drive

[LeonieCol]

We have a number of users who work on laptops, which are connected to the network and then disconnected when they go home.

 

All users have their own H: drive, where they can store all their private docs which are stored on the server and backed up. However, a lot of people opt to save to the 'My Documents' folder, which is currently not pointing to a server share, so that they have access to their documents at home.

 

Obviously by doing this, those documents are being backed up.

 

The plan is to redirect all local My Documents folders to the H: drive for that particular user, but is there a quick way to do it to avoid having to go to every single laptop and doing it manually? Also, some My Documents folders on some machines can be as large as 5GB which would obviously have time issues.

[LeonieCol]

Obviously by doing this, those documents are being backed up.

 

I meant AREN'T being backed up

[meastaugh1]

Yes, this can be easily achieved with Group Policy. While editing a group policy object, expand User Configuration>Windows Settings>Folder Redirection. Have a look here.

 

By using offline files (which I think is enabled by default) your users can continue to have a copy of their documents on the laptops for home use, but the files will be synchronised with the server for backup etc.

Edited October 27, 2008 by meastaugh1

[srochford]

As @meastaugh1 says, you can use group policy for doing the folder redirection and also for enabling off-line files. There is a time penalty but it's only really an issue when it's first set up (a cache has to be built locally which involves copying everything from the home folder to the laptop). After that, sync happens at logon/off or when the laptop is connected to the network but it's fairly quick (just make sure the user knows not to cancel it!)

 

this is one area where Vista is much better than XP; the synchronisation is much smoother.