Disable Folder redirection policy

Question

I have a large Hospital organization with 1000 plus end users that is going to migrate to OneDrive. Currently they are using folder redirection. After the migration they want to disable this. Goal is to leave the files in the destination folder from the redirection and prevent the files from being downloaded back to the client machines. They are running into the following problems per testing.

"When we tested the removal of this policy, the files from the ‘%USERNAME%\Desktop’ were copied locally to C:\%USERNAME%\Desktop on next login. If we change the bottom setting to “Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed”, the file redirection (Windows Explorer link) remains active."

Based on this documentation, this is expected. Best Practices for Folder Redirection in User Data and Settings Management | Microsoft Learn

"The problem with enabling “Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed” is that the redirected folders remain redirected (e.g. Desktop is still redirected to our server share Users\%USERNAME%\Desktop), when we would like to break/remove that redirection once we switch to OneDrive. The registry entry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders) remains redirected as well, from what I remember."

Anyone run into this before? How can you disable the redirection, prevent the files copying locally, and have the folders and files no longer redirected?

Answer 1

The problem is the folder remains redirected. The customer does not want that. If you think about it, what the customer is asking for here is to go back in time as if the GPO never existed. The files remain on the server and the folder was back to its original state of not being redirected. Is that possible?

For the 2 settings you have in that screen shot they both cause 2 different issues.

1. Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed - > Folder remains redirected. We don't want this. Yes, we want to keep files on the server but we also want to remove any existence of this folder redirect on the client machines and the folders affected by the policy.
2. Redirect the folder back -> This causes the copying of files back to clients, thus network problem. We don't want this.

Original Post:
"The problem with enabling “Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed” is that the redirected folders remain redirected (e.g. Desktop is still redirected to our server share Users\%USERNAME%\Desktop), when we would like to break/remove that redirection once we switch to OneDrive. The registry entry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders) remains redirected as well, from what I remember."

Answer 2

Hello anonymous user,

Thank you for your update.

As far as I know, after the GPO removes or disables, there are two cases as you mentioned.

1) Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed
2) Redirect the folder back

Should you have any question or concern, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,
Daisy Zhou

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Answer 3

Hi @Jon Studsrud

I am attempting to do something similar but my method is to change the redirection policy in stages as the users are migrated.

Firstly, set the Redirection policy removal behaviour to 'Leave the folder in the new location when policy is removed', if not already set and allow this to replicate.

Remove this GPO from the user via security filtering on the OU or move to a clean OU. gpupdate /force / user log out and back in

Create a new GPO to set the same folder redirections but this time set the target to 'Redirect to the local userprofile location' and take off 'Move the contents of [folder name] to the new location - these settings should make it behave as though it had never been redirected and not copy the files over.

Apply this new GPO to the User - gpupdate /force / log out and back in

Hopefully the user now has an empty set of folders in their local user profile.

Then use OneDrive KFM to point the folders to OneDrive if required

This is what I'm currently setting up a test lab for, if anyone else has success before I do please share!