Redirecting Favorites using Group Policy
Windows Active Directory and group policy lets you easily redirect your users Desktop, My Documents folders, Start Menu and Application Data (although I would like to know why anyone would redirect the App data folder). But for some reason the users Favorites redirection was left out of these defaults.
I’m sure there are multiple ways to do this but the way I’ve accomplished this at many sites by doing the following:
Create a blank group policy and call it something like “favoritesredirection” and assign it to the user Organisational Unit you want redirection to occur.
Within your new policy navigate to the User Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Scripts (Logon/Logoff) and double click on Logon from the right hand side.
Click on Show Files….
Now create the following files within this folder using something like notepad to do the editing as it doesn’t add any extra useless formatting:
A “favoritesredirection.bat” containing:
%systemroot%regedit /s favoritesredirection.reg
A “favoritesredirection.reg” file containing:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerUser Shell Folders]
“Favorites”=hex(2):25,00,48,00,4f,00,4d,00,45,00,44,00,52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,
25,00,5c,00,46,00,61,00,76,00,6f,00,72,00,69,00,74,00,65,00,73,00,00,00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerShell Folders]
“Favorites”=”\servernameHomefolders%username%_favorites”
The directory should look like this: 
Back on the “Logon Properties” window click on Add.
Type in favoritesredirection.bat (or browse and select favoritesredirection.bat) and click on Ok -> Ok and close out of the group policy object editor.
Tags: active directory, favorites, internet explorer, registry, Windows 2003
Windows 2003, Windows XP | Wayne | 
February 22, 2009 7:53 am