Folder Redirection Doesn't work in Windows 7 or Vista

Question

I am running a Windows Server 2003 Domain, and most of our clients are Windows XP. In the Domain Policy I have folder redirection turned on for Documents and Desktop. This works great on my XP machines but not on my Vista and Windows 7 machines. The Vista and Windows 7 Machines just store the Documents and Desktop in the default folders (ie. c:\users\jdoe\desktop)

How do I force these machines to use the GPO path I set rather than the default OS path?

Going to each machine and manually redirecting the folder is not an option.

Solution

I suspect that due to the changes to Roaming Profiles and Folder Redirection with Windows Server 2008 and Vista, you may find that you need to configure new GPO settings for Vista users. They're defined in the link (the Folder Redirection discussion begins about 30% through the article). It's not clear to me if you can use the older Server 2003 Administration tools to create these entries. It may be you need a GPO editor with the Server 2008 Administration tools.

It looks like the new features should provide a lot more power and control over how folder redirection is done.

Best of luck.

Comments

[Russ Bradberry]

This seems to be exactly it, I just used the Windows 2008 Group Policy editor and all the folders automagically appeared. I just have to remember not to use the 2003 GPO Editor Next time, so I don't undo my changes ;)