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I have a network share where I pull the Desktop and the Start menu items for all Terminal Server sessions based on the User's group membership using a GPO. Unfortunately I did not have something configured correctly and the Users could make changes to their profile, most notably adding files to the desktop and, when they logged out, the share was updated with their changes. Obviously this was not desirable for when other Users of the same group membership logged in the got these changes. I played around with different settings in the GPO but just couldn't seem to get the right combination. My interim solution was to make the share read-only. I have disabled right-clicking almost everywhere already and they are also limited as to what drives are available. What I really need is the correct configuration that does not leave the User's Desktop and Start Menu items on the TS and at the same time does not try and return it to the shared folder. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Azee

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    Let me get this clarified: you were using folder redirection to redirect everyone's desktop/start menu to the same shared folder for everyone? That's not really what folder redirection is for.. if you want to force everyone to use the same desktop/start menu, you can either set those with GPO preferences and direct the my docs info to a user specific folder off the terminal server. Or, use a combination of mandatory profiles and folder redirection
    – Rex
    Aug 15, 2012 at 19:48
  • Yes, I redirect everyone but to their own profile... C:\Documents and Settings\UserLoginName.
    – AZee
    Aug 15, 2012 at 20:48
  • Everyone is not redirecting to their own profile if the changes one person makes is made for everyone. The only way this would happen is if you were redirecting everyone's desktop and start menu folders to a shared location
    – Rex
    Aug 15, 2012 at 21:48
  • Everyone has their own profile on the TS's... depending on the group they are in determines what desktop and start menu items they get. These come from the network share. Until I made the network share read-only Users could update their desktop and start menu items. When other Users of the same group would login they would get these updated changes. Now Rex, I made it pretty darn clear what the issue was, you have made me define it needlessly deeper. Are you just going to comment or do you have an understanding of the various different options the folder redirection GPO does and can help?
    – AZee
    Aug 15, 2012 at 22:12

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If all you want is to have a common/shared desktop/start menu folders off the terminal server and prevent users from making changes to those folders, your solution is already the easiest method to accomplish this. There is no setting directly in the folder redirection policy settings. The only things to make sure you set in the policy is to uncheck the "user has exclusive access" and "move contents to folder" settings.

On a side note, it's generally bad form to piss off people trying to help you.

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  • The problem I am having is that when anyone logs into a TS then 2 errors are being recorded in the Applications event log. "Failed to perform redirection of folder Programs. The new directories for the redirected folder could not be created. The folder is configured to be redirected to <\\FileServer\desktop profiles$\AD_Group_Name\Start Menu\Programs>, the final expanded path was <\\FileServer\desktop profiles$\AD_Group_Name\Start Menu\Programs>. The following error occurred: Access is denied."
    – AZee
    Aug 22, 2012 at 17:31
  • The 2nd error is: Followed by: The Group Policy client-side extension Folder Redirection failed to execute. Please look for any errors reported earlier by that extension. The Start Menu properties for Folder Redirection only has 2 enabled settings... Leave the folder and Redirect the folder. It does not seem to matter which setting I set it to, the error is still being recorded (even after a gpupdate /force). As you could tell I am quite frustrated with this annoying problem and I apologize for being short.
    – AZee
    Aug 22, 2012 at 17:37
  • Did you uncheck the option for "user has exclusive access" and the "move contents to the folder" options? The exclusive access one in particular will cause the error message you noted when the user is not the owner of the directory.
    – Rex
    Aug 22, 2012 at 18:10
  • The Start Menu properties for Folder Redirection only has 2 enabled settings... "Leave the folder..." and "Redirect the folder...". Both "user has exclusive access" and the "move contents to the folder" options are disabled but unchecked.
    – AZee
    Aug 24, 2012 at 13:48

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