Redirect Faverates Folder

[alonebfg]

Ok I have had a search an i am sure it can be done. I need to be able to rediret the faverates folder. The reason being the teachers are getting annoyed at students deleting and messing with faverates when they shoud be going to the addres they gave them. I know the reg key is [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders]

"Favorites"=hex(2):25,00,55,00,53,00,45,00,52,00,50,00,52,00,4f,00,46,00,49,00,\

4c,00,45,00,25,00,5c,00,46,00,61,00,76,00,6f,00,72,00,69,00,74,00,65,00,73,\

00,00,00

is it possable to change it via a vbs at login to something like this

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders]

"Favorites"=hex(2):5c,00,5c,00,73,00,65,00,72,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,5c,00,63,00,\

6c,00,61,00,73,00,73,00,6f,00,6e,00,65,00,20,00,66,00,61,00,76,00,65,00,72,\

00,61,00,74,00,65,00,73,00,00,00

 

this changes the key from %USERPROFILE%\Favorites to \\server\class faverates.

any idears

I am sure there is a way to do it with a vbs or such like

[srochford]

set oShell=createobject("wscript.shell")

 

oShell.regwrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Favorites","\\server\class\favorites","REG_EXPAND_SZ"

 

oShell.regwrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Favorites" , "\\server\class\favorites","REG_SZ"

 

should work.

 

Note that you should only need to set the first value; the "shell folders" is there for compatibilty with some obscure and obsolete programs -see http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/03/55532.aspx for more info (which also points out that you shouldn't use either key directly but from vbscript it's hard not to!)

[alonebfg]

That is cool thank you. Have saved me about 7 days work if we ever meet i owe you about 5 pints am a man of my word. By the ay read the blog this will work with xp/2003 if i run at login

[pooley]

You could use GPO to assign favourites to specific OU's etc too

[alonebfg]

thats what i was thinking but for some reason trying to do the keyedit in gpo dont work i hope it will if i run it as part of a logon vbs

[Andie]

Posted about the issue of Favourites redirection a while ago myself and got some excellent help. Follow this link:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6155

 

Intention was to put together something for the wiki, but haven't managed to find time yet!

[Geoff]

There is actually an ADM template you can get that will allow you to use folder redirection with the Favourites folder. You can get it here:

 

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/guyt/archive/2006/11/18/Redirecting-IE-Favorites-via-GPO.aspx

[Andie]

I've used the ADM template, and it appears to be working a treat. I was advised to set this up as a separate GPO (called IE Favourites Redirection) and then link it to where I wanted it, which is what I did. We are redirecting Favourites to within our redirected My Docs, and after a bit of experimenting I found that %HOMESHARE%\My Documents\Favourites worked as the setting. Hope this helps someone.