Alternatives to redirecting folders for Start Menu

[monkey_boy]

Hi all,

 

I'm after advise yet again. We currently use folder redirection to make sure students have the correct start menu and desktop on each machine. obviously this means that all the software is installed in the same place on each machine etc. The problem is that recently we have noticed that the laptops tend to lag a fair bit when you use the start menu for the first time in each session. What other ways are there to get the same results. We are running server 2000, but are upgrading to 2003 in the summer. We don't use any network management software. Roaming profiles (in the traditional NT sense) we found to take an unacceptable length of time to log on.

 

Thanks for all the help

[Geoff]

Mandatory profiles?

[limbo]

You could produce a script that copies the start menu from the folder to somehwere local on the machine and redirect the folders to there.

 

This means that when you open the start menu you do not have to trot off to the server (and laptops suggest wireless network is in play here!) to get the information.

 

It means more traffic when you are copying it down, but depending on how often you had to do this it would probably be less traffic overall.

[bobp21]

If its just laptops with the issue are you sure its not a connectivity problem i.e. wireless / network driver or other driver issues on the laptops?

[ricki]

HI

 

I would upgrade to windows 2008 or windows 2012 not 2003. This will give you the option of copying files and folders in gpo. It will also save you lots of work upgrading to windows 2003 then to windows 2008, etc.

 

Main stream support for it ended in 2010 and extended support is I think 2015 see Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search

 

Richard

[sparkeh]

I use GPPs to build the start menus, Item Level Targeting allows you to check if the program exists on the machine and if the user should get the icon.

Works for us.

[_techie_]

Redirect the Start Menu to a local folder on each machine. The workstation will pick up the "All Users Start Menu" which is under the following directory: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Any user group specific shortcuts can go into the redirected folder, and the two will merge together to form a fully populated start menu.

You just need to be very careful about folder naming so that if you have a departmental structure, you dont get slightly different folders all over the place for departments!

 

GPP in Server 2008 R2 is easy to make this happen, but you could just copy shortcuts from a network share as a startup script into retrospective folders until you get to that point.

Hope this helps!

[jamesfed]

No one has noticed that this thread is from 2007 then......