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[Yuri]

Hi,

Interesting one this is... While helping out troubleshooting some 2008 policy/profile issues I kinda stumbled upon this situation where "ghost folders" were being created in the user's profile in his/her workspace. These ghost folders are a side effect of the situation wherein it's troublesome to redirect certain 'symbolic link' shell folders. All you Windows 2008 enthusiasts should know what I mean here right? Those pesky Contacts, Downloads and other folders?

I would LOVE to know how to get rid of them in a Windows 2008 environment! Or, please tell me how to redirect them easily.

Situation:
-Server 2008 Enterprise DCs
-Server 2008 Terminal Services
-Citrix XenApp 5
-RES PowerFuse 2008 SR7
-GPOs pointing to a mandatory profile (renamed the actual target to .v2 ofcourse)
Mandatory profile contains a clean default user environment that has been built, rebuilt, and thouroughly checked. Also, all tests have been performed using roaming profiles to assure the root cause had nothing to do with the mandatory profile.

Most of the folders, as listed below, have been redirected to destination folders either in the home directory or locally cached user profile. All folders will be automatically created using directory modeling on user profile- and home directory level:

{374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B}   %USERPROFILE%\Downloads
Cookies      H:\Cookies
Personal   H:\Documents
And so on and so forth...

The problem is.... IT WILL NOT WORK! Oh, the registry injection works flawlessly, but Windows does not seem to pick up on shell folder redirection like this. So.. We started investigating using symbolic links using [mklink.exe] to replace them. Again, nothing. At this point, it's easy for a user to click the particular folder and choose the 'move'option and we're done. So, how hard could it be to automate this to ensure predictable computing/workspace results?

Any help would be very appreciated. In fact, I offer RES Software User Group lanyards to the people who can help me solve this problem for this particular colleagues in workspacing!

[Yuri]

Hmm.. It would seem that a mixed mode (2003 & 2008)could be the culprit..
Still would like to know how to hide these user folders though :-)

[Yuri]

Hi All,

I've attached two HKLM Registry files that hide the User- & Public Folders.
Please feel free to use them appropriately...

Please make sure you configure user shell folder redirection on a GPO level instead of just registry based user shell folder redirection if you do not want 'ghost folders' or double symbolic link entries to appear. At least, this goes for mixed (2003 & 2008) environments...

Have fun workspacing!

[whocarez]

Hi

While deploying our new environment. I've stumbled upon this problem. A pretty pain in the ass to say.

But with the 2 registry keys supplied in this topic, problem solved.

The following actions where taken.

- In the default user folder directory remove the following folders
-- Downloads
-- Links
-- Saved Games
- Set all of the remaining folders to Hidden.

- Remove instead of modify the two keys Yuri Supplied.
- Remove the public user folder.

Use powerfuse to redirect the remaining folders If you want Dutch naming conventions like "Mijn Documenten" simply replace the Redirected folder name with Dutch.

I will try to make working building block and all the settings supplied.

[Yuri]

Awesome!
Thanx!

[Jeff Wouters]

That's handy :-) Thanks for the work!

[erlend_oyen]

Hello

Can these settings be used on 2008 R2 directly?

Erlend

[whocarez]

Removed My old post. Due to the fact that sometimes ghost folders were appearing.
Also because of the fact that I Hate using GPO's for user settings knowing that powerfuse can handle it far better.

So I've been researching the folder redirect using powerfuse only and I've found a working solution using roaming profiles and mandatory profiles.

You need to edit a lot more registry keys than normally.

Lets begin:

First of all. Windows vista/server 2008 has a Bug in it or as Microsoft says by design.

You need to set the following key:


This setting can be made on HKCU and on HKLM so you can choose what fits you best.

Setting the following keys will redirect you folders:


Make sure that the Folders you redirect to are available at that location. Using the registry to redirect will not create the folder at the new location. So you have to create them for each user.

Last but not least the Ghost folders. In below the User name in the Navigation pane.

Setting the following key will fix that for you:


The hardest part was finding out the guids being used on some of the folders.

When you set the above settings all folders will be redirected to the U:\ On one condition that all folders are there.

I've used a simple global execute command in powerfuse to create these on log on.
It looks like "CMD /C MD U:\Documenten U:\Desktop"

I will make a new Building block this week. As far for 2008r2 I have no idea. Try it and if it don't work Undo the setting.

[rodo]

Hi, great piece of work but unfortunately you have made a mistake like many IT Admins do:

1. At the User Shell Folder, you must use variables (like %HOMEDRIVE% or
%USERPROFILE%)!! To keep your "User Shell Folders" Dynamic.
The keys are REG_EXPAND_SZ, will say these will be resolved during logon and the resolved paths are placed within the "Shell Folders". When you use for example
%HOMEDRIVE% you can easily change your Homedrive letter when that is necessary, with the U:\ you are toasted!

2. NEVER touch the "Shell Folders"! Windows will resolve the proper paths from the "User Shell Folders" in it. When you create differences between the "Shell Folders" and "User Shell Folders" you are toasted again.

What might help for this topic:
There is a registry key which can be set since RES PowerFuse 2010 SR2. This will change the way where the Special Folders are handled. This key solved some issues where Folder Redirection was not recognised in time by RES PowerFuse.
Please take a look at the Knowledge Base article Q202706.

Cheers.

[whocarez]

Hi Thx for the tips

But U:\ Is not my Homedir or my Profile dir. It's a dedicated location for all users.

I will Try the powerfuse reg key and hope to see no ghost folders when i redirect.

keep you posted

Update,

Removed the Shell Folders and set the powerfuse reg key. And what do you know? It works like a charm.

[AndrewMorgan]

Hi All,

Thanks for making this available, it was very useful.

I have an issue with the shell folder icons when using this method, the user shell folders, my documents, my pictures, favorites etc do not have the special icon when browsed from the users profile directory. The redirected folders instead have a default icon.

I tried precreating the desktop.ini in the network folders using powerfuse, but the file types aren't supported by powerfuse and end up in chinese.

Anyone else have this issue? or have a clever work around? It's not a show stopper, but the correct look and feel would be nice.

[Nathan Sperry]

Hi Andrew,

I have seen this issue before with Windows 2008 the problem lies with the desktop.ini file located in the redirected folder. When using GPO folder redirection it will create the desktop.ini which contains information pointing to an icon file located in Shell32.dll. Unfortunately if you don't use GPO then this file doesn't get created I think or at least doesn't contain the information related to the icon file.

The following is an example that is in the desktop.ini file for 'Documents' folder

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21770
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-112
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-235

You can try this and see if this helps.

Nathan

[AndrewMorgan]

Hi Nathan,

I've tried this previously and its hit and miss. It will work some times and not others.

I may stick a call through to the support department, as pre-creating these ini's is not possible using workspace manager as it changes the content to Chinese.

Thanks anyway for your time. If i log the call I'll update the thread.

[AndrewMorgan]

just an fyi, below is how to fix the issue with the incorrect shell folder icons.

This problem will occur if you delete the active setup keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components
or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components

to fix the issue, restore the following key:

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4340}

the command itself is: regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:U shell32.dll

A big thanks to Erwin Grim for the tip off, he accidentally fixed this issue for me