32 Bit/64 Bit Neutral Shortcuts

[sidewinder]

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure I've created shortcuts on my W& x64 machine (so they would point to Program Files (x86)) and put them in the start menu and users on 32 bit W7 can get to them fine. Last week I even had a shortcut change path - I had the apps drive mapped to a different letter on my machine than the shortcut pointed to, but Windows detected that and still loaded the software - was quite impressed by that tbh

[6Foot2]

That worked for me - it is %ProgramFiles% (i.e. without the space) though, not what is written above.

 

Thanks. I will give that a go [when I get the time]

[pete]

I may be being thick here but how do you get it to look at group membership and apply the correct menu? we are currently trying to find the best way to do the redirected start menus in a mixed environment.

 

Assumptions:

 

1) For each group of users, there's a security group that isn't shared by other users (we use pupils, teachers and dept-admin)

2) Your workstations are logically split into per-room OU

3) You've taken whole rooms to 64bitness in one go (if not, create a 64bit sub-ou and apply the GPO there).

 

Create a new GPO

 

Computer Config > Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy:

 

User Group Policy loopback processing mode: Enabled. Mode: Merge

 

User Config > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection > Start Menu

 

Setting > Advanced - Specify locations for various user groups

 

pupils \\path\to\start\menu\64pupils

teachers \\path\to\start\menu\64teachers

etc...

 

Options: Grant Exclusive rights = Disabled, Move contents of Start Menu to new location = Disabled

 

 

Link the new GPO to a Room OU with 64bit machines and set it to enforced (so it'll triumph over any other start menu settings). Now test it.

 

(Our Start Menus are also administratively assigned offline files, but that's unnecessary for this to work).

[tforeman]

How about creating two path varibles to the program files & program files (x86) app folders and leaving out the path in the shortcut?