Thursday 29 November 2012

Server 2008: Users documents folders listed as "My Documents"

Does your user share directory look something like this:
I need to copy some files into Bob's documents folder. err
This is not particularly useful and this happens when Windows 7/Windows 8 home drives are viewed from Server 2008 R2 (and I assume possible Server 2012).

The official Microsoft answer is to either remove access rights to administrators to the desktop.inf file saved in the root of each users directory.  This would either need to be done manually or on a scheduled script and is quite frankly a rubbish solution.

The *best* way to resolve is to have the Documents folder redirect under a username folder e.g. \\SERVER\share\%username%\Documents so at least your user directory will display the easily identifiable usernames.  However if you have a lot of users that might take some doing.

Quick Fix
A simple work around so you can identify the "real" folder names correctly is to add the file name column to explorer
To do this Right click on any of the column headings and select More

Next scroll down until you find filename NOT folder name.  This will add the filename column which will show the real name of the folder instead of the "friendly" name of My Documents.  It will appear at the far right and to be useful I recommend moving over to the left
 Once that is done... Whoop we have a usable, sortable folder list in our usershare!
No need to hunt around for the correct folder any more!


Sunday 18 November 2012

Task Scheduler in Windows 8 from Start Screen



Wow, just wanted to schedule a task - this is something that should be much easier to do than it is in Windows 8.  Via the new Windows 8 start screen it is not easy to find the task scheduler at all.  That is unless you have enabled Administrative Tools to be visible...

I personally disable these as they clutter my Windows 8 start screen - but I thought that searching for task, scheduler or task scheduler might have yielded it.

Nope so here is how to get to the task scheduler from the Windows 8 start screen

  • Enable Administrative Tools
    • Open the side menu (Mouse to top-right)
    • Click Settings
    • Click Tiles
    • Move the slider to "yes"
  • Now wait a few seconds and your "Administrative Tools" will appear

There you are Task Scheduler!