Windows 7 Folder Redirection rename the Home folder in "My Documents"

  • Article

When you redirect the Documents folder on a Windows 7-based computer to a network share, the folder name unexpectedly changes back to Documents. But we expect the folder name to be the user name.

Here are reproduce steps:

Server : Windows 2008 R2 STD (US)
Station : Windows Seven (Fr)

1.    We defined a hidden share as the home folder in Active Directory.
Ex :
\ServerUsers$User1 (home folder for user 1)
\ServerUsers$User2 (home folder for user 2)
2.    In GPO:
Configure the Folder redirection Setting with this parameter :
Basic - redirect everyone's folder to the same location
Redirect to the users home directory
Move the content of Documents to the new location
Also apply redirection policy to windows 2000 etc...

3.    When log to the server and browse "users" directory, the user directory appear like he was renamed in "My Documents"
Ex :
D:usersMy Documents
D:usersMy Documents
D:usersMy Documents

The folder are not really renamed, it was just the display that was incorrect.

4.    If using a command line to browse the directory, the folder appear with the good name.
D:usersuser1
D:usersuser2
D:usersuser3

 

This behavior was firstly observed in Windows Vista and still in Windows 7.
It appears to be a change from Windows XP - in XP, redirecting to the folder does not change the display name of that folder.

 

More information:

https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;947222

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Brandon is correct, just delete the desktop.ini inside the affected My Documents folder

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2010
    I'm not seeing this behaviour. The top level user directory is correctly named after each individual's account name and, beneath that, there is the "My Documents" folder. Are you creating the user1, user2, user3 folders manually or allowing Windows to create them for you as needed?

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2010
    You are able to correct this however it is a manual process.

  1. Determine the proper owner of the file (typically it is whichever user has Full Control of the folder since it is a home drive)
  2. Rename the folder to a different name then what it should be (using your example D:usersuser1-temp)
  3. Rename the folder back to the correct name (using your example D:usersuser1) Since the issue is just a display problem when you try to rename the folder back to the original name the system sees the name is in use (Even though it does not show). By renaming the folder to something else then back to the original name will correct the display problem. After doing this i have not seen a reoccurrence of the display on that particular folder. I most often come across this when moving directories from one drive to another.

  • Anonymous
    December 17, 2010
    Have a read of: support.microsoft.com/.../947222

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2011
    Is it......  desktop.ini ??   show hidden files.   delete it.   The Folder should now say User1 instead of My Documents.

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    I came accross this issue planning for a Windows 7 roll out, currently we use XP, folder redirection is set up for both systems to point to the same folder. I Deleted the desktop.ini file from the users folder (that is being redirected) and it then seems to retrieve its proper name again, i then logged in again without issue. Probably just a case of deleting all the users desktop.ini files, will try this with a group policy preference

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2011
    Here's some more information that might be helpful, <a href="www.petenetlive.com/.../0000467.htm">Windows Folder Redirection</a> Pete <a href="http://www.petenetlive.com">PeteNetLive</a>

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2011
    Ooops www.petenetlive.com/.../0000467.htm

  • Anonymous
    July 06, 2011
    We have had the same problem but have found that this only occurs if the individual User has ownershipo rights!  If we make a Domain Admin group the owner of the users home drive then when viewing the home folder structure with admin rights all user names are displayed. Alternatively, if in the details view you enable the 'Owner' and sort on this column then moving the column to the left hand side will show all of the 'My Documents' folders in user alohabetical order. I have not tested this yet when viewing the home directory without admin rights!!

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2012
    This is only possible when you write desktop.ini file on different location. Although you can move it between various locations, it still will show same results. So best practice is to disable redirection on users to keep them using the local storage and pass the information to the nearest file server which then will authenticate against your proposed file server and solve the issue.

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 22, 2013
    Is this a REG_EXPAND_SZ ?     hex(2):40,00,25,00,66,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,6e,00,61,00,6d,00, 65,00,25,00,00,00 or hex(2):40,00,25,00,66,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,6e,00,61,00,6d,00,65,00,25,00,00,00 or 40,00,25,00,66,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,6e,00,61,00,6d,00,65,00,25,00,00,00 This not working as posted.  

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2013
    The value is a REG_EXPAND_SZ - the information was cut off: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerFolderDescriptions{FDD39AD0-238F-46AF-ADB4-6C85480369C7}] "LocalizedName"=hex(2):40,00,25,00,66,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,6e,00,61,00,6d,00,65,00,25,00,00,00

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2013
    Trying again (!): Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer FolderDescriptions{FDD39AD0-238F-46AF-ADB4-6C85480369C7}] "LocalizedName"=hex(2):40,00,25,00,66,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,6e,00,61,00,6d,00, 65,00,25,00,00,00

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2014
    I'm using folder redirection and for XP's machines the folders are not showing as windows 7 for example My Documents. I tried to find the folders that you guys mentioned above but I couldn't. There's any way to make xp work tthe same way as windows 7 for the folders structure?

  • Anonymous
    November 29, 2014
    In my opinion this is a better fix:

    http://www.edugeek.net/attachments/forums/general-chat/27767d1417262921-desktop-ini-gpp-fix-schermafbeelding-2014-11-29-om-11.52.11.png

  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2015
    SOLUTION: Remove hidden file desktop.ini under each user folder

  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2015
    @Per-Henrik, that is NOT a solution because desktop.ini is recreated by Windows at login.