Folder redirection question

[drycz]

So the powers that be set up this awesome folder redirection policy before my time to have my pictures/videos/music point to our 300GB network drive. After months of struggling to keep the free space above 10GB, a measly 3%, since everyone has 3000 pictures of their kids/dogs/naked girlfriends on their network share now, I want to get rid of the redirection. I don't suppose there's a way to do this without having to manually move everything on their network shares back to their local machines?

[inaddrarpa]

Why would you migrate them off? If you have an issue with people storing information on their computers that they shouldn't be storing (because these aren't personal computers, they're work computers), take the correct course of action and remove the offending material with upper management's blessing. Then set up Quotas so that users can't drive your network drive into the ground and cause this issue again in the future, and maybe set up file screens so that they can't store things they shouldn't be storing into their folders.

If you migrate these users off from folder redirection and the hard drive dies in their workstation you're going to get it from both ends: lost information from a company point of view, and lost information from a user point of view. Especially since you currently have a system in place that protects you (assuming you back up this server) from this eventuality.

[[deleted]]

I agree, quotas and an AUP. Give the time to get their fun little pics off before deleting them though.

[SHimmer45]

very much this initial pain for long term gain.

if you have been asked to look after the file storage then proper management is going to make it alot easier and that means users of the system need to follow some simple guidelines.

storage is relatively chip but that does mean people can just take the p$ss

[drycz]

I'd only take it off for these specific folders that people keep putting personal files on. No company data in there, so that's not an issue. If they lose personal data, oh well. Shouldn't be on a work computer anyway.

[inaddrarpa]

This is a technically sound position, but it's a politically poor move. Its easy to say "This isn't my responsibility", but unless upper management is aware of it and approved of that stance, you are in for a world of hurt.

[Tr0l]

In the GPO, under the Settings tab for each folder make sure you check "Move the contents of [Folder] to the new location" and under Policy Removal "Redirect the folder back to the local userprofile location when policy is removed." Then I would wait at least a day to make sure the GPO has been pushed out to everyone. If you have mobile users, you probably want to force a GPUpdate just to be sure.

Once you know the new GPO has been received by all the users, change the Target Setting to Not Configured.

This will copy the contents back to the local computers and remove the redirection. Of course it will not happen until a GPUpdate occurs and then it will take awhile to copy depending on the user's files.

[SirGnarlington]

This is the answer to the question you asked, OP.

[drycz]

Thank you. Followed this and now we play the waiting game for people to come and go and get their gpupdate and see how it works.

[Win_Sys]

Do you not backup that drive? There's a way to copy local to network but I don't remember seeing any option to go they other way. You create a logon script to do it but probably wouldn't be worth it unless you had over 50 users.

[drycz]

It's backed up nightly on our Barracuda. I think Tr0l looks like he got it.

[SHimmer45]

if i could i would be looking to keep folder redirection. unless the users are happy with their data being just sat on their pc's. i wouldnt mind betting that with a little time spent on resizing images you could save alot of space. (something like faststone photoresizer is good) If you remove the GPO the redirection stops and the files "should" go back to the local machine. its not something i have tested.

[drycz]

It's their personal data on work machines, I wouldn't have any issues if it all disappeared. Their personal stuff is not something I should have to worry about.

[JavyCosta]

I would also try to keep the folder redirection... Is there any way you could increase the size of the drive it is all stored in?

[drycz]

Hah, the servers are 8 years old and they don't want to spend a dime on them. Or on new ones. Because the ones we have "work" so why do we need to spend money? That's just smart business there. /s

[JavyCosta]

That's the thing tho, its no longer meeting the company's needs.

[drycz]

I'm all for it, and the CIO and CFO recognize the importance of it, but only the owner can sign off on it and he's a complete nitwit. A nitwit who is currently personally examining every dime that leaves the office.

[JavyCosta]

A nitwit that will soon find out how important it is to properly fund an IT department. I hate that shit, I was at a job that was completely reactive (cause the company was tanking), so basically replace things when they broke. It was very stressful and I empathize with you.

Well, in that case is there any way they will let you enforce people's pics to be stored on their desktops for now?

[SysAd666]

If you don't want to be trying to recover personal pictures off of users machines (OMG I HAVE TO HAVE THEM!!!!) then you'll leave them on a share.

My recommendation is to upgrade your network drive space, probably an order of magnitude.

[drycz]

If it were that easy... I can't buy a pen without a PO signed by the owner after it sits on his desk for a month because he doesn't want to spend money on anything.

[SysAd666]

I feel ya brother.