Friday, May 1, 2009

Vista Renames Redirected Folders to %Username%

Hi I have a series of folders redirected on my vista workstations such as My Documents, Desktops and Downloads all setup using group policy objects. They all go to a smb share on one of my file servers under:

\\servername\desktops$\%username%
\\servername\downloads$\%username%
\\servername\documents$\%username%

I noticed on more then one PC, Vista was renaming the redirected folder to %username%. For example Documents would become Clint, Downloads would be come Clint, Desktop would become Clint. This is very frustrating - I have seen it happen on more then one computer, and it appears to happen randomly. I have yet to put my finger on the trigger as to what causes this behaviour. All my Vista PC's are up to date in terms of patch level as of 1/05/2009 so there is currently no microsoft hotfix for this.

Here is an example of what I mean... in the following picture my Documents folder has mysteriously renamed to my active directory username.


After some investigation I have found out what in Vista is changing to make these folders rename. It turns out to be the desktop.ini file. Each one of these folders, Documents, Desktop, Downloads and any other folders you redirect all contain desktop.ini files. This file contains the information it needs for shell32.dll to name it. The name it gives the folder is determined on a predefined number string for example shell32.dll, -21770 for Documents. To fix the issue simply modify the desktop.ini hidden file and in the respective directory and replace it with the correct values. Below is a list of all the different profile folders and their default desktop.ini configuration. You can simply copy and paste from below:

Documents


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21770
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-112
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-235


Pictures


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21779
InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-12688
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-113
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-236
[LocalizedFileNames]
Sample Pictures.lnk=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21805


Music


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21790
InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-12689
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-108
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-237
[LocalizedFileNames]
Sample Music.lnk=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21806


Videos


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21791
InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-12690
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-189
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-238
[LocalizedFileNames]
Sample Videos.lnk=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21807


Searches


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-9031
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-18
[LocalizedFileNames]
Indexed Locations.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32811
Everywhere.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32814
Shared By Me.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32802
Recent Music.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32803
Recent Documents.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32804
Recent Pictures and Videos.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32806
Recent E-mail.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32807
Recently Changed.search-ms=@shell32.dll,-32813


Downloads


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21798
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-184


Favorites


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21796
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-115
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-173


Contacts


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%CommonProgramFiles%\system\wab32res.dll,-10100
InfoTip=@%CommonProgramFiles%\system\wab32res.dll,-10200
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-181

If anyone finds out what triggers Vista to modify these desktop.ini files please let me know by emailing me at clint@kbomb.com.au. If I find out be confident that I will update this post straight away explaining it.

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