Adding shortcuts to ALL USERS start menu

[contink]

This problem has had me stumped most of the day so I'll throw it open to see if someone has a solution in 30 seconds..

 

Background:

- All school packages are installed using GPO from a shared directory as per standard

- Some packages however are centralised on the server and the users simply click a shortcut on their local machine to get start using the software.

- The login script sets the mapped drives up AFTER the GPO installs run.

 

So, what I was trying to do was create these shortcuts in the ALLUSERS start menu so they could just click through.. I opted to try and do some wininstall and MaSAI captures to see if that would do the trick but every time they were ruined when put into a GPO install..

 

Now what I was seeing was my nice long pathnames in the shortcuts being truncated when installed by GPO but not when I ran the MSI locally (and logged in).

 

Took me a few hours to realise that of course the mapped drives didn't exist when the GPO kicked in so it wasn't finding them and, I'm guessing here, truncating them to 8 characters long.

 

It wasn't doing it properly though ie: "s:\long named thing\" was being set as "s:\long nam\" instead of the usual DOS version of "s:\long n~1\"

 

 

So I've since looking around with a view to adding something to my VBS scipt but all I can find is desktop shortcuts scripts and not a damn thing for the ALL USERS start menu...

 

 

all in all a bit of a crap, wasted day but if anyone could share some insights at this point I'm all ears.

[contink]

Ain't it sodding typical..

 

Just as I'm typing out the problem I realise what the solution is...

 

I've edited all the paths used in the MSI to use the 8 character limit and it's worked..

 

A whole day wasted *sob* but I seriously hope this saves some other poor sod from this gem... 8)

[djm968]

Just my two pence worth but.. I usually write a script to add shortcuts to the all user start menu or desktop. I find it cleaner and easier to manage.

[ninjabeaver]

Hi djm968,

 

Any chance you could post or forward me a copy of your script so I can adapt it for use here.

 

I'm in the process of removing WinSuite at last and need to copy quite a few program shortcuts so the students and teachers still have all programs available.

 

Many Thanks

 

Simon

[Geoff]

Who need's a script? I just use robocopy..

[djm968]

This is a simple script to create a folder in the start menu called "anyprogram" with an admin subfolder.

 

The script also changes permissions so that students do not have access to the newly created admin folder and copies shortcuts to the respective folders.

 

You will obviously need to rename the script to with a cmd or bat extension and modify the server and share for your envionment.

 

Enjoy

[djm968]

Forgot the attachement!!!

shortcuts.doc

[ninjabeaver]

Thanks again. I'm starting to get on top of things now, and I'm going to start to learn scripts and flash I think.

 

Cheers,

 

Simon.

[djm968]

Thanks again. I'm starting to get on top of things now, and I'm going to start to learn scripts and flash I think.

 

Cheers,

 

Simon.

 

The thing is I am really lazy and try not to move from my chair too much

 

Once you master scripting you will wonder how you ever managed without.

[ninjabeaver]

OK, I've done the script .bat and it works fine from my logon as with administrator access.

 

I've a logon script .bat file which calls the shortcut .bat for the teachers machines (I'm testing a lite version on them first).

 

The thing is that the script is reporting access denied when doing anything from the script.

 

I'm thinking (probably wrongly) that I need to set Admin access in the script as it makes the folders and then xcopies the shortcuts to them.

 

 

LOGIN.BAT

@BREAK OFF
@ECHO OFF

@BREAK OFF
@ECHO OFF

net use i: \\phserver2\apps
net use p: \\phserver2\careers
net use s: \\phServer3\Flo
net use t: \\phServer1\Public
net use n: \\phserver2\Headstart

%0%\..\kix32.exe logon.kix

net stop messenger

TICONS.BAT

EXIT

 

TICONS.BAT

REM Make New Program Groups (Folders)
MD "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Brooke Weston"
MD "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\DiDA"
MD "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\OCR Nationals"
MD "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Learn Premium"
MD "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Birchfield"

REM Folder Rights for New Folders (Allows Icons to be copied)
CACLS "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Brooke Weston" /T /E /P teachers:F
CACLS "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\DiDA" /T /E /P teachers:F
CACLS "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\OCR Nationals" /T /E /P teachers:F
CACLS "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Learn Premium2" /T /E /P teachers:F
CACLS "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Birchfield" /T /E /P teachers:F

REM Move New ShortCuts to Specified Folders
XCOPY "I:\New Icons\Birchfield" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Birchfield" /C /Q /Y /I
XCOPY "I:\Focus Educational Software" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Focus Educational Software\" /C /Q /Y /I
XCOPY "I:\Learn Premium.lnk" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Learn Premium\" /C /Q /Y /I
XCOPY "I:\PICAXE Programming Editor.lnk" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Technology\" /C /Q /Y /I
XCOPY "I:\DiDA" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\DiDA" /C /Q /Y /I
XCOPY "I:\Brooke Weston" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Brooke Weston" /C /Q /Y /I
XCOPY "I:\OCR Nationals" "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\OCR Nationals" /C /Q /Y /I

 

It's either that or I'm using CACLS wrongly. I'd really appreciate some advice, pointers or fixes for this.

 

Thanks everyone in advance,

 

Simon.

[Geoff]

Are you running this at user login or machine startup?

[NetworkGeezer]

The default NTFS permissions on the ALL USER folder tree is for users (and hence Domain Users) to be readonly. You wouldn't want your students changing shortuts and menus on whim.

[ninjabeaver]

Sorry Geoff. This is run at user login. I'll also point out that we are still running WinSuite, but this is the first stage of removing it totally from the network. Slowly moving the students from Yr9 to Yr 13 off of it.

[Geoff]

you need to run it at machine startup instead. Your users probably don't have sufficent permission to alter permissions on folders in all users and/or add files there.

[ninjabeaver]

OK Geoff, thanks. But how do I do that please?

 

Sorry, I'm in NooB mode. But this is all new to me.

[Geoff]

1) Pick a Group Policy

2) Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Scripts -> Startup

3) Add -> Browse

4) Locate your script.

5) Close the Group Policy.