Deploy and configure folder redirection
Folder Redirection is a Group Policy setting that is most often used for configuring user profiles. Administrators can use Folder Redirection to redirect individual folders from a user profile to a new location. For example, an administrator can redirect the Documents folder from a local or roaming user profile to a separate network location. Redirected folder content is available from any computer on a network, and it doesn’t copy to the computer on which a user signs in, as with roaming user profiles. Folder Redirection also provides users with access to the same data from multiple domain computers without copying data locally, as is the case with roaming user profiles. You can configure Folder Redirection by modifying Policies\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection settings in the User Configuration part of Group Policy.
Redirected folders are stored on a network share only, and users access them transparently in the same way as when they’re stored in a local user profile. The Offline Files feature, which is enabled by default when redirected folders are used, provides users with access to content in redirected folders even without network connectivity.
Administrators configure Folder Redirection by using user settings in Group Policy, and by doing so, can redirect individual folders in a user profile. In Windows, an administrator can redirect 13 folders in user profiles, including Desktop, Start Menu, and Documents. Administrators can redirect predefined folders and folders in a user profile only. For each user with redirected folders, Windows creates a new sub-folder with the user’s sign-in name, and folders can be redirected to the same location or to a different location based on user group membership.
When you configure Folder Redirection, you can configure what happens if Folder Redirection is no longer effective. The options are to leave the redirected content on the network location or to move the content to the original location to a user’s profile. Folder Redirection can redirect many parts of a user profile, but settings that are stored in Ntuser.dat can’t be redirected. Because of this, some administrators use roaming user profiles with Folder Redirection.
Folder Redirection provides several advantages:
- Redirected folder content is available from any computer in the domain.
- Redirected folder content doesn’t copy to local computers, which minimizes network traffic during user sign-in.
- Administrators can set quotas (limiting disk space) and permissions on redirected folders. By doing so, administrators can control how much space a user can utilize and whether the user can modify contents of that part of the folder – for example, Desktop.
- Redirected folders are stored on network locations (network shares) and not on local computers. If a local hard drive fails, users can still access data in redirected folders from a different computer.
- Redirected folder content can be backed up centrally because it isn’t stored locally on user computers. If Shadow Copies for Shared Folders is configured on a network location, users can access previous versions of their redirected files.