Note: This document is intended for Austin Active Directory Departmental Administrators.

Many departments on campus use Austin Disk Services to redirect individuals' My Documents, Desktop, and Application folders using Group Policy Objects (GPOs). This practice allows users to experience a consistent desktop on any campus computer that supports this setup — for example, in a computer lab. Redirecting these folders to Austin Disk Services also ensures that any data or applications in these directories are backed up regularly.

There is some danger of overwriting these folders if the individual subscriber uses computers in multiple departments that use redirected folders via GPOs. If each department redirects these folders to the user's root directory, the data could be overwritten when the user logs on to a computer in another department.

To avoid this issue, ITS strongly recommends that redirected folders configured via GPO for individual subscribers be configured as follows:

• Each department or college should have its own designated directory within the individual'sProfiles directory. For example, the designated directory for the Jackson School of Geosciences might be eid\Profiles\GEO. If your GPO references the Profiles directory and the directory does not already exist, it will be created automatically.

• Application Data and Desktop directories should be created within each designated directory. For example, the Application Data directory should be created as eid\Profiles\GEO\Application Data and the Desktop directory should be created as eid\Profiles\GEO\Desktop.

• Since the contents of the My Documents folder are not in danger of being overwritten or encountering version or configuration conflicts, the folder can remain in the root directory. For example, the directory should be set up as eid\My Documents.

Please note that these recommendations do not apply to Austin Disk Services departmental share users.