Page Last Updated: 21/02/2010
Redirect Internet Explorer Favourites

If your users move around from machine to machine, some elements of their profile will not follow them. While some can be redirected via Group Policy, the main one missing from that feature is Internet Explorer Favourites.

However this is easily achieved by modifying the registry as part of the login script.

1. Create the registry file. In this example it is called favorites.reg.
   The best way is to make the required changes on a test machine. Once verified that they work correctly export the relevant keys. Open the export file in a text editor like notepad and remove the other keys.
   There are two locations for this particular change and the first is in "hex", making the native registry editor a much easier place to create the initial settings.

The example below redirects both locations to "U:\Favorites" however as the first one is in hex if you are using a different location, then you will need to make the change in your own registry so that the export will be correct.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User 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_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders] "Favorites"="U:\\Favorites"
2. Place the following line in to your login script:

%systemroot%\regedit /s favorites.reg
 

3. Place the file in the correct location.
   This should be the same directory as your login script (more information here).

About this site

This information originally started life as a page on amset.info, our community assistance site. However that site is targeted at Microsoft Exchange server, as Sembee Ltd. is a Microsoft Exchange consultancy. Therefore it was moved to its own domain in early 2010. Traffic from amset.info is directed here.

Other sites that are owned and operated by Sembee Ltd include kbsearch.info, certificatesforexchange.com, dosprompt.info, office-recovery.info, wuauclt.info, blog.sembee.co.uk, exbpa.com and amset.info.