1 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:06,380 So let's dig into folder redirection a little bit more. 2 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:12,380 So some of the features in folder redirection and I think the first thing to know is that it is a per 3 00:00:12,380 --> 00:00:17,480 user policy only, so it's only assignable under user configuration. 4 00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:23,810 And in this path, policies, window settings, backslash folder redirection, you know, it really 5 00:00:23,810 --> 00:00:24,950 does two main things. 6 00:00:25,100 --> 00:00:30,530 Folder redirection redirects those folders out of the user profile path and into a server share. 7 00:00:31,430 --> 00:00:36,830 So it essentially says, for example, with my documents that whenever you open my documents, whether 8 00:00:36,830 --> 00:00:41,330 it's from Word or through the Explorer, it's going to really be pointing to that server share. 9 00:00:41,510 --> 00:00:46,520 So whatever server share you assign to the documents path, that's where my documents ends up pointing 10 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:46,790 at. 11 00:00:47,690 --> 00:00:52,490 So when you save files, they're being saved to the server rather than in the local profile. 12 00:00:53,390 --> 00:00:58,520 The other thing that folder redirection does for you is it creates and then moves any existing data 13 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:04,040 that the user has in the local profile, in the local folder path, in the user's profile to the server 14 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:04,430 share. 15 00:01:04,610 --> 00:01:09,770 And it does that when the user first logs in after folder redirection policy has been assigned to them. 16 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:17,990 So essentially at first log on, if the user has ten, 20, 100 meg of data, a gig of data folder redirection 17 00:01:17,990 --> 00:01:23,180 policy is going to take and move that up to the server share where you've designated for that particular 18 00:01:23,180 --> 00:01:24,290 folder redirection. 19 00:01:24,470 --> 00:01:29,000 And that does mean that that first log on could take a while if the user has a lot of data. 20 00:01:29,900 --> 00:01:34,400 Now the other thing that folder redirection provides is two modes of redirection. 21 00:01:35,270 --> 00:01:40,940 There's a basic mode which essentially says that anyone that processes the policy gets redirected to 22 00:01:40,940 --> 00:01:43,820 the same relative path, relative server location. 23 00:01:43,850 --> 00:01:45,110 I'll show you this in a bit. 24 00:01:46,010 --> 00:01:49,340 That doesn't mean that everyone's data gets sent to the same folder. 25 00:01:49,370 --> 00:01:53,270 It just means that every user is being directed to the same server share. 26 00:01:54,140 --> 00:02:00,200 Advanced folder redirection lets you designate different paths, different USC paths or different folders 27 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:02,060 based on security group membership. 28 00:02:02,940 --> 00:02:08,220 So the scenario here might be that you have a file server for the sales users and a file server for 29 00:02:08,220 --> 00:02:09,180 the users. 30 00:02:09,330 --> 00:02:15,060 And you obviously don't want sales users being able to access any shares on the server because of the 31 00:02:15,060 --> 00:02:16,560 sensitive nature of the data. 32 00:02:17,490 --> 00:02:22,680 So you can designate two different redirections for, let's say, the documents folder within the same 33 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:24,240 folder redirection policy. 34 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:29,160 And that's really all it is, is that ability to designate different redirection locations based on 35 00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:32,640 folder path or I'm sorry, based on group membership. 36 00:02:33,540 --> 00:02:38,400 So this screenshot shows how you can set up folder redirection and you'll see that it's selecting the 37 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:43,140 basic or advanced redirection and then you can define where the redirected folders go. 38 00:02:43,260 --> 00:02:46,580 So there's a number of options here, which I'll show you in just a bit. 39 00:02:46,590 --> 00:02:52,110 But in this case, it's creating a folder for each user under the root path that's designated below. 40 00:02:52,920 --> 00:02:59,550 In this case, it's a DFS share for user data that's called R to test dated backslash user backslash 41 00:02:59,550 --> 00:03:00,240 user data. 42 00:03:01,170 --> 00:03:07,050 Now I tend to like DFS as the place to redirect documents, just like I liked it in software installation 43 00:03:07,050 --> 00:03:10,260 policy because it abstracts the physical server location. 44 00:03:11,130 --> 00:03:15,080 So if you ever have to retire a server, a server runs out of disk space. 45 00:03:15,110 --> 00:03:17,310 For whatever reason that server goes away. 46 00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:20,030 You don't have to come in and change all of these policies. 47 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:25,230 And for that reason, and for the same reason that I liked it in software installation policy, I typically 48 00:03:25,230 --> 00:03:28,100 use DFC shares or folder redirection. 49 00:03:28,110 --> 00:03:30,930 And again, you don't have to necessarily replicate data. 50 00:03:31,850 --> 00:03:38,060 You know, part of the value of DFS is that it has this ability of replicating data to multiple replicas. 51 00:03:38,090 --> 00:03:44,390 You don't necessarily have to do that if you choose, for example, with user data not to replicate, 52 00:03:44,450 --> 00:03:45,770 that's completely fine. 53 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:50,960 It can exist on a single server still, but it's referenced based on this kind of domain based relative 54 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:51,380 path. 55 00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:57,530 Now the settings dialog on folder redirection gives you control over some of the other more kind of 56 00:03:57,530 --> 00:04:00,740 granular options when you're redirecting this particular folder. 57 00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:07,040 So for example, you can tell Windows to reposition the folder that gets created for the users, such 58 00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:08,750 that only the user can access it. 59 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:11,030 Grant exclusive rights to that folder. 60 00:04:11,060 --> 00:04:15,890 And in this case, the administrator would actually have to take ownership of that content in order 61 00:04:15,890 --> 00:04:16,460 to see it. 62 00:04:17,390 --> 00:04:22,580 So this is sort of the default mode, and it actually sets the permissions on the folder that gets created 63 00:04:22,580 --> 00:04:27,590 that basically only grants the user who's accessing that folder access to those files. 64 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,410 The move, the contents of documents to the new location. 65 00:04:31,420 --> 00:04:34,420 This is essentially that automatic copy that I talked about. 66 00:04:34,570 --> 00:04:35,800 You don't have to do this. 67 00:04:35,810 --> 00:04:41,380 You could manually copy the content for the user, but this is the default behavior for folder redirection 68 00:04:41,380 --> 00:04:44,470 is to copy the data from the local profile to the server. 69 00:04:44,470 --> 00:04:45,160 Share it first. 70 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,640 Log on this down level policy checkbox. 71 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:55,480 If you still have any of these versions of Operating System Windows 2000 XP Server 23 checking this 72 00:04:55,480 --> 00:05:00,100 ensures that the documents or the folders that you're redirecting will also apply to these down level 73 00:05:00,100 --> 00:05:00,640 clients. 74 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:06,880 Because Microsoft made a change in Windows Vista, an above to folder redirection, and then the final 75 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:08,410 policy removal controls. 76 00:05:08,410 --> 00:05:13,660 What happens when the GPO that's delivering this folder redirection policy no longer applies? 77 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:19,960 And in this case, what's happening is that the folder is being redirected or copied back to the local 78 00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:26,590 profiles so that essentially the location for the documents folder goes back to the local profile. 79 00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:32,200 Now some best practices you really need to be selective about. 80 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:33,130 You redirect. 81 00:05:34,030 --> 00:05:36,610 There's a lot of options in folder redirection. 82 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:39,040 You don't necessarily want to do all of them. 83 00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:42,090 Things like app data and the desktop. 84 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:48,190 These can have a really negative impact on user performance if you're redirecting these to the server 85 00:05:48,190 --> 00:05:48,640 share. 86 00:05:49,530 --> 00:05:54,540 The reason for that is because a lot of the applications in the case of app data use that location, 87 00:05:54,540 --> 00:05:58,260 that folder location to store settings or transient temporary data. 88 00:05:59,150 --> 00:06:04,310 And if it's going up to the server share every time it's needing to perform those operations, then 89 00:06:04,310 --> 00:06:06,350 the applications tend to slow down. 90 00:06:07,190 --> 00:06:12,020 And with the desktop, it's sort of an interesting phenomenon that the desktop, when it's redirected 91 00:06:12,020 --> 00:06:13,810 to a server share, can behave in. 92 00:06:13,820 --> 00:06:20,120 I guess I would say strange ways in as much as there are often slow performance on the desktop or the 93 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:22,580 desktop doesn't respond as you might expect. 94 00:06:23,500 --> 00:06:29,140 In any case, I tend to avoid redirecting the desktop folder and the app data folder because of these 95 00:06:29,140 --> 00:06:30,850 kind of user performance issues. 96 00:06:31,750 --> 00:06:37,270 Now if you do use that grant exclusive, remember what I said that even administrators will not be able 97 00:06:37,270 --> 00:06:39,250 to see the content of those files. 98 00:06:40,180 --> 00:06:45,700 So you'll have to actually gra take ownership of any shares or any folders if you want to get access 99 00:06:45,700 --> 00:06:46,960 to that user content. 100 00:06:47,110 --> 00:06:48,970 So that's kind of the default behavior. 101 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:55,920 So make sure that when users are aware that those redirected folders also use the offline caching feature, 102 00:06:55,950 --> 00:06:58,140 offline files feature automatically. 103 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:04,230 So if the user is getting their documents folder redirected, it's also available offline. 104 00:07:05,070 --> 00:07:09,980 And this can help when they run into issues where, let's say, for example, they're on a laptop. 105 00:07:10,820 --> 00:07:14,360 And they might have been working on cached versions of the files. 106 00:07:15,220 --> 00:07:20,170 And then when they connect back up to the corporate network and have access to the server, those files 107 00:07:20,170 --> 00:07:21,910 are synched up to the server shares. 108 00:07:22,820 --> 00:07:27,530 I've seen issues where this can cause issues, especially if they're working on different machines. 109 00:07:28,460 --> 00:07:33,320 Maybe they're on their laptop, they're making changes to a document, they're going to a desktop. 110 00:07:34,190 --> 00:07:38,600 They need to make sure that those changes that they've made while they were offline sync backup before 111 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:41,810 they go to the other machine and start working on those same documents.