Start menu location

[ful56_uk]

Hi

 

how do people redirect there start menus. Do you have a server share with them on? Or do you have a startup script that copies them to the local drive? Or a different way.

 

Do you have a global one or one per room/ou?

[tmcd35]

We redirect students start menu and desktop to read only shares on one of our servers. We have 2 of each, 1 for 64bit and 1 for 32 bit and use WMI filters on the two GPO's to direct the appropriate computers to the correct version.

[ful56_uk]

Do you find any slow down when everyone is using the start menus across the network?

[PiqueABoo]

Online computer startup differentially robocopys from a server and constructs a bunch of menus (each one aimed at a different domain group) on the local drive, including evaluating and deleting LNKs that aren't relevant to that computer.

 

I specifically wanted it like this so I had the same menus to play with both online (to the domain) and offline, but it apparently has some performance advantages over redirecting to a server share. This is insignificant for me, but the downside is that you've got to restart the computer to pick up start menu changes.

 

[Read-only desktops are done the same]

Edited April 23, 2010 by PiqueABoo

[tmcd35]

Can't say I've really noticed. There's the odd occation when the menu takes a couple of secs more than expected to draw but it's rare and so far nobodys complained.

[ful56_uk]

Online computer startup differentially robocopys from a server and constructs a bunch of menus (each one aimed at a different domain group) on the local drive, including evaluating and deleting LNKs that aren't relevant to that computer.

 

I specifically wanted it like this so I had the same menus to play with both online (to the domain) and offline, but it apparently has some performance advantages over redirecting to a server share. This is insignificant for me, but the downside is that you've got to restart the computer to pick up start menu changes.

 

That sounds interesting. We have a bat file that copyies the start menu from a server share to the local drive. I would like to get them more targeted to ou location/room so they only get shortcuts that are from programs in that room

[PiqueABoo]

Can't say I've really noticed.

 

Me neither coz my off-domain requirement precluded ever trying it. I recall seeing threads here from folk with issues, but that may well have been related to some specific quirks of their systems. I'm a pragmatist so if it works for you...

 

If I had done that I would have *tried* access based enumeration to control which domain groups get to see which start menu folders. Does anyone do this?

 

That sounds interesting.

 

It needs a bit of script or code to chew through your copied start menu folders. With script you can open existing LNKs with the "WScript.Shell" CreateShortcut() function, then get their target path, check if the target exists out and delete the LNK if it doesn't. In reality you also need to worry about [link] how you make shortcuts to network resources which eventually came along and bit me, and perhaps you have to accommodate a "special" where the shortcuts points an OS app at something e.g: "cscript.exe c:\myapp\myscript.vbs" (cscript.exe is always there, the vbs file might not be), but most of it is fairly mundane scripting.

[mrbios]

DFS Share \\domain.local\Menus\*Name of start menu folder*, as each building is on a different DC so they get all get them from their local DCs, used to do the printers the same way but we've gone back to a single print server again now

[danrhodes]

DFS Share \\domain.local\Menus\*Name of start menu folder*, as each building is on a different DC so they get all get them from their local DCs, used to do the printers the same way but we've gone back to a single print server again now

 

Same here we don't ever have issues regarding slow down due to the start menu, we do get slowdowns due to kids looping network cables back!

 

D

[Arthur]

DFS Share \\domain.local\Menus\*Name of start menu folder*, as each building is on a different DC so they get all get them from their local DCs, used to do the printers the same way but we've gone back to a single print server again now

How do you deal with laptop users when using this method? Have you still got it setup in the same way as before?

 

Edit. Just found this which explains what to do for laptop users.

http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/windows/providing-redirected-start-menus-to-laptops

Edited April 26, 2010 by Arthur