Folder Redirection Feature in Windows

ID: Q232692

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

SUMMARY

This article describes the Folder Redirection feature in Windows 2000.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft Windows 2000 server provides the ability to redirect specific user folders to server locations, using a group policy extension called Folder Redirection.

Many administrators may wish to use folder redirection in such a way that a user's folders are automatically redirected to a newly created folder for each user. This article discusses how to redirect to the new folder location and the minimum NTFS Access Control List (ACL) permissions you need to complete the redirection successfully.

Set Up

Folder Redirection is a User group policy. This means that a user for whom you configure folder redirection must have a group policy linked to some folder structure where their user object is subordinate, such as a site, domain, or organizational unit.

Once you create the group policy and link it to the appropriate folder object, an administrator can designate which folders to redirect and where To do this, the administrator needs to navigate to the following location in the Group Policy Object:

User Configuration\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection

In the Properties of the folder, you can choose Basic or Advanced folder redirection, and you can designate the server file system path to which the folder should be redirected.

The %USERNAME% variable may be used as part of the redirection path, thus allowing the system to dynamically create a newly redirected folder for each user to whom the policy object applies.

Security Requirements

If you configure Folder Redirection to create new subfolders for each user, that user needs sufficient Share and NTFS ACL permissions to create the subfolder in the appropriate location.

When a user does not have sufficient Share and NTFS ACL permissions, their folder is not redirected and you can view the following event in the local application event log:

Event ID: 101

User: <USERNAME>

Computer: <COMPUTERNAME>

Description:
Failed to perform redirection of folder <FOLDERNAME>. The new directories for the redirected folder could not be created. The folder is configured to be redirected to \\<SERVERNAME>\<SHARENAME>\%USERNAME%, the final expanded path was \\<SERVERNAME>\<SHARENAME>\<USERNAME>. The following error occurred:
Access is denied.

At a minimum, users who need a personal folder created for them at a location need to have Modify rights on the container in which they are going to create their folder.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbtool
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo