How to configure Dynamic Environment Manager – Folder Redirection

[Edit – 31/10/19 – Updated for Dynamic Environment Manager]

Setting up folder redirection saves a significant amount of time when logging in when compare to roaming profiles. Rather than copying the the contents of the folder to the local machine, we’ll just repoint the users folders to their share on the network. This also assumes that you have the share setup and configured on the. This share would have the same permissions as a roaming profile share.

Easy Start.

  1. Open the DEM Management Console.
  2. Select the User Environment Tab, select the Folder Redirection, and click  Create.
  3. This will open the Folder Redirection window.
    1. Give the setting a name
    2. Fill in the Remote Path. Since this is in my lab I don’t have DFS setup but in a production Environment I would strongly recommend DFS. I also use the system variable %username% as this will take the system variable of the user name.
    3. It’s up to you which folders you’d like to repoint. Generally speaking you’d want Documents and Downloads as a minimum. Initially I also prefer to redirect the Desktop folder as people sometime save there (no matter how much you tell them not to) and the AppData folder (but this is optional, DEM can be setup to save most app customisations)
  4. Click on the conditions tab and add any that are appropriate..
  5. Click Save.

Done.

How to configure Dynamic Environment Manager – Basic Navigation and Creation.

[Edit – 31/10/19 – Updated for Dynamic Environment Manager]

Before I begin the next bunch of posts where we’ll look at specific customisations we’ll quickly look at some useful extra’s when you go about creating your customisations.

We’ll look at the dummy reg key thats been created as an example

  1. Open the DEM Management Console.
  2. Navigate to User Environment -> Registry Settings and double click on Registry Demo
  3. In the Registry Settings Window.
    1. Click Edit to open the registry. This will open in NotePad
    2. You can select when to apply the registry setting (Before or After Profile import)
    3. As a run once variable.
    4. And the usual variables, like Name, Label(description), an give it a Tag.
  4. Click on Conditions and Add. Here is where you can set how the various environmental settings, such as by domain group, OS or even day of the week, get applied. 
  5. The next tab across is the comments tab. I encourage everybody to use the comments tab to track changes and add a bit more detail into what is being applied.

Always remember to save your changes.