blergh central – nebev.net

Today I came across a very interesting problem in regard to Group Policy folder redirection in Windows 7. All folder redirection was failing with reason codes similar to the one below:


Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-Folder Redirection
12:12:58 PM
Event ID: 502
Task Category: None
Level:
Error Keywords:
User: username
Computer: computername
Description: Failed to apply policy and redirect folder "Documents" to "\\server\share$\username\". Redirection options=0x9020. The following error occurred: "Failed to build the list of known sub folders".
Error details: "The system cannot find the file specified. "


This was happening for all redirected folders – Start Menu, Documents, Music, Desktop etc etc. I assumed firstly that this was a permissions issue. I checked and rechecked all permissions. I logged on as a user – saw the redirection fail, and tried to access the “failed” directory as that user. The user could access (and write) to the documents directory without any problems. I sort of already guessed this was the case because XP clients weren’t having any problems. I also knew that I was in a bit of trouble because googling this error returs no results (sigh).

I cast my mind back to a couple of days ago and remembered that I approved a bunch of updates that had been piling up (I know, I shouldn’t let them pile up but I don’t often get time to approve them). Anyway, after a LOT of painful update installs (pretty much one at a time – took me and some colleagues 3 hours), I found the update that broke folder redirection: KB980408

Microsoft’s description of this KB is: Install this update to resolve reliability issues with Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.

Well, that didn’t work. After some careful googling, I found that other people have had problems with this update too. Not the same problem mind you. There was a fix recommended in this forum. I wasn’t sure that it was going to solve my problem, but it did.

The [temporary] solution I used involved the following: Make a reg File with the following in it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00</code>

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{2112AB0A-C86A-4ffe-A368-0DE96E47012E}]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{2112AB0A-C86A-4ffe-A368-0DE96E47012E}\PropertyBag]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{491E922F-5643-4af4-A7EB-4E7A138D8174}]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{491E922F-5643-4af4-A7EB-4E7A138D8174}\PropertyBag]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{7b0db17d-9cd2-4a93-9733-46cc89022e7c}]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{7b0db17d-9cd2-4a93-9733-46cc89022e7c}\PropertyBag]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A302545D-DEFF-464b-ABE8-61C8648D939B}]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A302545D-DEFF-464b-ABE8-61C8648D939B}\PropertyBag]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A990AE9F-A03B-4e80-94BC-9912D7504104}]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A990AE9F-A03B-4e80-94BC-9912D7504104}\PropertyBag]

Run the reg file. It’s important that you reboot after the fix has been applied. I’ve got a friend who is emailing Microsoft about this issue, and hopefully they’ll release a hotfix or something. I’d be interested to know if anyone else has had similar issues (or fixed it using these steps).

EDIT: A side-effect of this fix is that renaming via Windows Explorer sometimes fails. Still… better than having no folder redirection