Asked by:
Map to Home folder

General discussion
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It would be nice if you could set up a users home folder to map to a drive letter from the WHS.
Monday, June 18, 2007 2:43 PM
All replies
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There's no automated way to do so provided with WHS, but there are a number of options, including registry edits, TweakUI, and other similar tools. If all you want is to move a user's My Documents folder and contents, there's an interface in XP/Vista that will let you do that.Monday, June 18, 2007 9:55 PMModerator
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It would add very useful functionality to the connector for some if that was an option during install.
Hmm, maybe a WHS addin here......!
Monday, June 18, 2007 10:52 PM -
Add-ins run on the server, not the client. The remapping has to happen on the client. So not add-in fodder.
But moving "My Documents" to the server is pretty trivial, even without a tool in the connector to do it for you.Monday, June 18, 2007 11:10 PMModerator -
Bob,
Did toy some time ago with using the offline files function to have user home directories stored as shares and so that they remain available when users are offline from the server, In my family we have 5 laptops so it seemed like a good idea. Had a couple of instances where Windows appeared to get confused and delete both copies of the files which put me off the idea.
This could be worked on further in this instance but in real terms, it offers little more than standard home directories and an incremental system backup on a nightly basis so not sure how much further this could be taken.
Thanks
DaveTuesday, June 19, 2007 10:30 AM -
You are, of course 99.9% correct. I did originally write "power toy" but foolishly changed it
Yeah, moving My Docs is trivial if you know how, but something that does it for you is easier, especially if you don't!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:21 PM -
It would just be nice to map a drive letter,
I know how to do it via the users pc and in a AD It would just be nice when you add a user on the WHS you could say map \\whs\users\formanbob to h:\
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 7:10 PM -
If I understand what you want to do then it is in fact a fairly simple procedure. I don't know if this will work in Vista, but what I have done in XP which seems to be that is just in Windows Explorer click 'Tools' then 'Map Network Drive...'. From there all you do is select the drive letter you want, then browse for the folder you want on the server and voila! \\whs\users\formanbob is now also known as h:\.
Note: You can't seem to do this with the root of a network server, i.e. you can't map h:\ to \\Server\, which is what I originally wanted to do, but for that I just placed a shortcut to the server on my desktop, so whenever I want to access it that is how I go about doing so.Thursday, June 21, 2007 2:16 AM -
Why not use of the good old DOS batch file. Create a text file with the following code and then rename to login.bat (for example) and place in start-up folder for the user.
It will run at login and map the drive from the WHS automatically.
<code>
@echo off
net use h: \\WHS_Server_Name\users\User1 /persistent:no
net use i: \\WHS_Server_Name\software /persistent:no
net use m: \\WHS_Server_Name\music /persistent:no
net use p: \\WHS_Server_Name\photos /persistent:no
net use o: \\WHS_Server_Name\videos /persistent:no
<code>
just replace 'WHS_Server_Name' with the server name and 'User1' with the user and its done.
GFThursday, June 21, 2007 2:17 AM -
<sigh />
"But you try telling the young folk of today...."
Thursday, June 21, 2007 6:58 PM -
Suggestion for MS: Create an option in the Home Server icon that says: "Redirect your documents folder to the Home Server" or something like that. This command should change the path of the My Documents, My Pictures and My Music folders and move their contents to the user's home folder. I don't think old-fashioned drive mappings are necessary.
For Vista, some additional folders should be redirected to the server, like Contacts, Favorites, Videos.
Hopes that this will make WHS a better product!
M
Thursday, June 21, 2007 7:29 PM -
Hi, I am no expert but it seemed reasonably easy to me to map a network drive by right clicking My network places and using the wizard to map the already shared user folder, making sure to tick the reconect at logon box and then right click the My documents icon and select move to transfer to the mapped drive.
Obviously I have only tried this on XP so have no experience of how it works on Vista, anybody see any pitfalls in this before I completely commit my documents to the network?
Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:19 PM -
Although it's RC, it is still pre-release software, so don't commit any data that you don't have copies of elsewhere.
As some users are experiencing occasional problems (MS Money being the main query ATM) I'd hesitate to save directly to WHS just yet, but some other testers are using the powertoy SyncToy successfully.
Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:40 PM