Redirecting My Documents with Group Policy

A user's My Documents folder can be redirected to a folder on a server using the group policy below:

User config - > Windows settings-> Folder redirection

Once you've gotten to "folder redirection" in the group policy editor by using the path shown above, right click on the My Documents folder underneath the Folder Redirection folder and choose properties. From there you can set where the My Docs folder will be redirected to. There are 4 choices:

1 - Redirect to user's home directory - I'm not sure exactly how home directories work, but if a user has one, this points the user's My Docs at his home folder. According to Microsoft Technet, home directories are not considered the way to go anymore. This option lets you point My Docs at a home directory for companies whose users are already used to using home directories.

2 - Create folder for each user under the root path - this is generally the option that you want to use. It lets you set a root path - say \\Stonewall\users, and then Windows gp will create a folder for each user (using their login name) and put the user's My Docs folder under their named folder. Example:

\\stonewall\users\tayloen\My Documents
\\stonewall\users\samh\My Documents
\\stonewall\users\davidc\My Documents

From Microsoft Technet:
Rather than having to enter a UNC path such as \\server\share\%username%\MyDocuments, the administrator can simply type in the path to the share such as \\server\share, and Folder Redirection will automatically append the user name and the folder name when the policy is applied. This removes the need for administrators to be familiar with environment variables, and minimizes the chances of errors and spelling mistakes.

3 - Redirect to the following location. This option is similar to option 2, but you have to use the old Windows server 2000 interface. In other words, you have to specify the path using the %username% variable:

\\stonewall\users\%username%\My Documents

4 - Redirect to the local user profile - use this to basically undo a previous redirection of a user's My Docs folder. In other words, if after having redirected a user's My Docs folder to somewhere on the server you decide that you want his My Docs to point back at his local computer (like it was before), then use this option. Simply disabling the "Folder Redirection" group policy will NOT return the user's My Docs to his local computer. This setting will.

The other choice on the My Docs properties window asks you to choose whether you use basic or advanced redirection. Basic is as described above. I think advanced lets you choose a different root path based on group membership. For instance, instead of everybody having their My Docs folder under \\stonewall\users, you could have administrators have theirs under \\stonewall\admins and Engineers under \\stonewall\engineering.