Folder redirection of Application Data

[StarDuck-NL]

We have merged our IT departments and are moving to one desktop. Roaming profiles have been introduced. My Documents and Application Data are redirected. The problem we have is with the redirection of Application Data.

In a group policy it is only possible to redirect to a servername\sharename combination. Our users are spread over The Netherlands over more than 100 server\sharename combinations. We didn't want to use advanced redirection to manage all these security group memberships. Another problem with the Folder Redirection policy is the slow link detection. When a person with a homedrive in one location logs on to a PC in another location connected over a slow link then you don't want your Application Data to be used over a slow link. Although there is a slow link detection possibility in a Group Policy, the detection of a slow link is done by Microsoft by checking the link speed to the domain controller. Because every location has its own domain controller the link is never slow so the Folder redirection of Application Data succeeds.

All the above resulted in that we made a "manual folder redirection" in the logon script. It checks the link speed to the homeshareserver and according to that alters the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Application Data to "M:\Appdata\Application Data" if the link is fast and to %UserProfile%\Application Data if the link is slow.

This works well for almost any application except Messenger clients like Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger and Live Messenger. If you link the logged in user with a LiveID account and you check that it has to remember the account - password combination that will work throughout logoff logon but not after a reboot.

This behavior resulted in some people not trusting this "manual folder redirection". I am curious how other companies are dealing with the application data / roaming profile / slow link. Also if you have any suggestions about how to solve the LiveID problem, please let me know.

Kind regards,

Danny Quak

Wageningen University

The Netherlands