Home / server / Questions / 526615
In Process
PnP
Asked: 2013-07-27 10:31:20 +0800 CST

Strange Folder Redirection

  • 772

I've recently inherited a client who has a folder redirection policy GPO and home paths specified through user attributes in AD. Now the strange thing is, I have literally no idea how it is working. See for example:

In the GPO - it specifies the location for My Documents redirection to:

\\%HOMESHARE%%HOMEPATH

Now if I type this into a run prompt manually it of course resolves to:

\\\\server01\user\john

The Home Folder connect drive specified for John in AD is mapped to U:\ and in the field: 

\\server01\user\john

Yet folder redirection is working, how is this possible? To clarify, this is a Windows 2003 server environment with Win7 and Win XP clients (redirection works on both clients)

active-directory

1 Answers

  1. Microsoft software will sometimes "help" by removing extra slashes. It is not consistent across all software/APIs/methods. I don't think this is formally documented anywhere.

    For example, if you enter a path in a format like the following into the Start -> Run/search box, it will fail, as you note.

    \\\\server01\user\john

    However, if you enter the path in the following format, it should work:

    file:////server01/user/john

    Oddly, in my testing, one can use up to six slashes, but seven yields an error. (Win 7 Pro SP1)

    As an aside, it may be worth mentioning that only a very limited set of environment variables can be used in folder redirection path. They are %USERNAME%, %USERPROFILE%, %HOMESHARE%, and %HOMEPATH%. MSFT reference

    • 1