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My Documents Folder Redirection not Folder Synchronization

Windows Server 2003 SP1; I have My Documents folder redirection setup via GPO. Files are redirected to a users’ share on the network. Everything has been working great. However, I have noticed that when a user logs on, existing My Documents’ contents are redirected to these users’ folders. For example, if the all users or default users had a 50 MB movie called test.mpg in some local computer’s My Documents folder, then this test.mpg file too would be redirected as a file in the users’ My Documents.

This may be by design, but is there a way to stop this behavior? Basically, I do not want local computer files to synchronize; I just want to files to be redirected.

sow56091

Hi bemara57,

I think the key to your answer is "trying to avoid problems in the future." Unfortunately I'm not an AIX expert so I cannot be specific there, but using a package-management system minimizes dependency, linking, and other problems found with building, configuring, making, and installing binaries from source. Upgrades and uninstallation is easier too and primarily handled by the package management database, as are hardware-specific releases for your CPU. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_management_system)

"Proprietary software systems

A wide variety of package management systems are in common use today by proprietary software operating systems, handling the installation of both proprietary and free packages.

* installp is the AIX command for Object Data Manager (ODM) databases."

Cheers!

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George Lob

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George Lob

By the way, the reason this happens is by design so that if a computer connot log on to the network they still have access to their files and be able to work.

sow56091

sorry CecilAdmin. :-) I did post to the wrong spot. In your question, I agree with gvlob. You could, however, change which *types* of files are synchronized, but that's a two-way stream, so to speak. To do one-way redirection, you might look at a (free) program called SyncBack from 2brightsparks, which could handle that scenario--the downside would be how to deploy it correctly, especially if the GPO affects many people / computers.

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Shift-3

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George Lob

Shift-3, I don't think he just wants the files to reside on redirect path and not the local hard drive in which case he would want the contents of the local drive to be moved to the new location (for an older computer that has not been redirected and has needed file on his local drive). He does not want new files to be save locally which is controlled by offline files settings.

George Lob

Sorry remove the "don't" in the first sentence.

DaSpug

Cecil Admin,
I agree... with both!!!

Change the settings in the GPO and disable offline files to stop the sync if you don't want sync's to occur.

If files from existing PC's don't need to be moved to the redirected folder when redirection/GPO's kick in then follow Shift-3's comments.

However, be aware that offline file syncs for My Docs is VERY useful for laptop users as they usually want access to My Docs without having a VPN or whatever active, so think about changing the setting based on computer type and creating two GPO's on different OU's (one for desktops and one for laptops).

DaSpug