Global Favourites list

[maniac]

We run a mandatory profile on our new network, which I've edited to re-direct the favourites folder to the students 'my documents' area. I want to add some global favourites like a link to the webmail service, learning platform etc. but I can't get it to work.

 

I add them in the right area of Group Policy, but they just fail to appear on the favourites, presumably because I've re-directed it to a different folder. Anyone got any ideas what I could do to get this working? It works for staff who use Roaming profiles, just not on our students mandatory profile.

 

Mike.

[DrPerceptron]

Have you checked in GPMC whether there are any policies overriding the assignment of the favourites?

 

if they're using a mandatory profile, can you dump them in the mandatory profiles Favourites folder?

[sted]

you could write a script that sees if they exist in userarea:\favourites and if not copys them at logon

so

if not exist u:\favourites\webmail.url copy \\server\share\favourites\wembail.url u:\favourites\webmail.url

 

or similar

[mortstar]

We use mandatory profiles for our student accounts and I've edited the ntuser.man so that 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders' and 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders' are pointing at \\server\favourites$

[maniac]

We use mandatory profiles for our student accounts and I've edited the ntuser.man so that 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders' and 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders' are pointing at \\server\favourites$

 

That's what I've done, but directed it to the users home area as we want the students to have the ability to have their own favourites list, but I also want the ability to add global ones to the list and preferably pin them at the top of the list. GPO has a way to do this, but it doesn't seem to work with mandatory profiles.

 

@sted

I had thought of using a script, but we already have a lot of scripts running on our domain, I was trying to avoid adding even more to the mix if possible.

 

Mike.

[sted]

you can add them via user group policy as well im just not sure if/how well it works with mandatory as i just shove a folder in the start menu called internet and dump my shortcuts there

 

user config\internet explorer maintenance\urls\favourites and links

[john]

I have favorites via my GPOs with mandatory profiles, but I haven't redirected them, our students just keep them in a htm file they use often (created in IT it appears) which is quite a novel way of doing it (and teaching them skills in web-design at the same time )

[DrPerceptron]

We're assigning favourites to students using GPO and they use mandatory profiles... but we don't redirect anything, so I guess redirection and the gpo don't like each other...

 

or a potential idea is that while the ntuser.man respects the redirection, group policy is still stuffing the profiles Favourites folder with the links...

 

worth a look?

[john]

just a wild thought, but cannot really test it myself at present, does the loop-back processing and setting it to merge do anything to them at all?