Questions[folder-redirection](server)

Followed this doc to setup folder redirection: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj649078(v=ws.11).aspx

Under Step 3: Create a GPO for Folder Redirection it has me add my "Folder Redirection Users" group to the scope of the GPO, but it also has me delete and add back the "Authenticated Users" group.

So since I have the "Authenticated Users" group in the scope of this GPO does that mean it will hit ALL users under the OU it is applied to and not just members of the "Folder Redirection Users" group? Do the permissions it has you grant the "Authenticated Users" group when you delete and add it back prevent this from happening?

At the school I am the technician off, we have Windows Server 2012 that are giving students access to their user shares through a folder redirection GPO. Anytime a user signs in their home folder's display name gets changed to "My Documents". I need them to still display as lastname.firsname so the teacher can tell whose files they are accessing.

I already tried the solution stated in the this article Shared Home folders on file server listed as “My Documents”and it did not work. I searched for the desktop.ini files in the folders of the users that have been afflicted by this issue only to find none.

I also tried having the folder redirection point to a documents and favorites folder within the users' home folders.

Any help would be great.

I'm moving some folders to an external storage drive and replacing them with a Shortcut, however the shortcut is listed in with the Files, not the Folders. It also doesn't show up in the folder Tree View that's on the left side of Windows Explorer.

Is there a way to make Windows Explorer treat a Shortcut Folder the same way it would a regular Folder?

I'm redirecting appdata, my docs and desktop folders to a server using a GPO based on what facility they're usually at. This brings up a problem for users who bounce between multiple locations. Firefox profiles are stored in appdata so it takes forever to go to another facility to get the Firefox profile so that it can start. And after two to three minutes of waiting for Firefox to load, it runs so slowly that it's almost unusable

I want to remedy this with DFS but I don't want to have a hellish transition period. Right now the GPO for facility1 is set to redirect the folders to //server1/Documents and the GPO for facility2 is set to redirect the folders to //server2/Documents. I know I'll need to change these settings to the DFS namespace that I create.

I'll need to add //server1/Documents and //server2/Documents to the DFS namespace //DFSDocuments/ and change the GPO redirection settings to redirect appdata to //DFSDocuments/UserName. Writing it down here makes it seem really easy though; will that be all I have to do? Will the GPO setting direct to the UserName folders in the DFS namespace correctly without me having to move anything? Will the users see any hiccups at all? Or will it just magically replicate?

I'd appreciate any feedback and tips from anyone who's gone through this (non-dfs folder redirection to dfs folder redirection) transition before.

I've been struggling with this issue for days and cannot seem to find anyone else with a similar issue.

I will note first that I have tried using both roaming profiles and the group policy setting for force local profiles.... now onto the problem.

What I am trying to do is have my teachers accounts log onto their laptops using their domain credentials. Once logged in their desktop and documents are redirected to a network share //server/redirects/documents/.

This works fine when the computer is connected to the domain network. Offline File Sync works great and caches the files locally.

However this all breaks down when the user logs in when the computer is no longer connected to the domain network. When the user logs in the desktop and documents are empty. What I find very odd is if I manually go to the offline file folder all of the files are there, The group policy folder redirection does not execute to the offline folder. Is this by Design? (It does not work like this on Vista, I have the exact same group policy settings set on vista machines and it works flawlessly).

Additional Info

When I look at the event log there is no folder redirection events at all when user logs in and is not connected to the network.

In addition a new profile is create in c:/users/username.domain.00x. Every log in creates an additional profile. There is a event that states that a registry files were still in use.

Any help would be appreciated.