A director of a business with a network of 10 users has just asked if its possible
to stop users placing files locally on their machine's My Documents folder (winXP Pro)

Instead he wants everyone to only store files on the server (in their respective personal folder)

The way I'd implement this is to alter the person's user account on the local computer by chaning LOCAL SECURITY SETTINGS

Anyone done this before ?

I'd prefer to just send a memo telling people "from now, put all your docs on your personal folder on the server", etc...

 

you can change the location of my documents by right clicking on the my documents link on the start bar, and enter a new address.

this can also be done in the registry.

 

Yup you can definitely do it. It's invisible to the user too - As far as they are concerned the "my Documents" folder still exists - it just resides in a remote location.

 

If on a domain you can use a group policy and folder redirection to redirect my documents to the users home drive on the server

 

thanks lads

Sonic, they're on a domain. Just found this, which is perfect, but they're only using Win2k server - don't know if there's an equivalent?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro....mspx?mfr=true

 

We use 2k Server, yes it can be done, our my docs folders show as H:\My Documents, which is a mapped folder on the server, obviously only showing the correct users folder and nothing else, not sure how its setup tho but it can be done.

 

I can do it manually, just by click "poperties" on each user's my documents folder and mapping it to their personal folder on the server. That's fine, but I'll need to go around each computer.

Being a lazy bugger, it would be nice if I could just alter a setting on the server, so every user who logged in would have the remap made.

Not to worry, I'll just do it the "hard" way!

 

in 2k3 its in group policy under

User Configuration > Windows Settings > Folder Redirection

Not sure if it's there under 2000

we redirect my docs and desktop using 2k3

Another settings to enable if its on 2000 is to prevent user from changing my docs location

 

Ours is done automatically, probably by the method posted above

 

Yep as above.

Can be set to map the location of the My Documents folder via a group policy within active directory.

Or you can map a network drive to the required location on the server and then change the target of the My Documents folder to point to the mapped drive

 

Yes, yes I GET IT!! Win2k3 has a nice facility for this!! Think its time I requested a new Win2k3 domain controller to replace the ageing Win2k box (6 years old)

Whats the next Windows server product on the horizon ? Vista Server (?!) ?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

Server 2008

take a look here

Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 Evaluation

Download details: Windows Server 2008 Step-by-Step Guides

guides above

 

thanks for the info

release date ? 2010 ?!?