Discussion on:

How do I copy shortcuts to the All Users folders in Vista or Windows 7?

Have you tried to apply settings to the All Users folder in Windows 7? Did you (are you having) have trouble?

Now I know what a 'Junction Point' is.

I will be monitoring this forum to try to answer any questions you might have and participate when I have something to add to the discussion.

Thank you for this tip. Very useful. Another question though. Windows 7 comes with choice of logins. How I get the User name / Paswword login from XP Pro or server, where each user need to type the user name and password?

This is one area that WindowsXP and Windows7 out-shines Linux based desktops. Public Desktop and Public StartMenu.

I must manage multiple users on the same WinXP machine.
I want all to have the same basic StartMenu and Desktop (so they have the same set of tools, utilities etc.) I have been loving the "Documents&Settings\AllUsers" for years. It is one of the best parts of WinXP and now Win7.

Gnome,KDE must have something similar but I cannot decode the tree structure for the StartMenu of either. Trying to keep the Linux based systems consistent is much harder.

We all have good in us, some more than others.
This is one area where the Linux based Desktops can take a page from Microsoft's Playbook.

I appreciate the answers. I'll be trying these soon. I'm very interested in seeing if shortcuts put in these folders survive Sysprep.

Where in Microsoft help do they explain what a Junction point is? Now, I finally know.
It would be helpful if they put an explanation or resolution to a KB at least of what/how to proceed, instead of the generic 'error'. You don't know how many times I sat there, wondering why I can't open a Junction Point, and there was no answer for it.

Thanks.

Before I contacted Mark, I did some digging on my own. (TR helps those who help themselves!) I found this link. Some of it overlaps with Alan's article and the MS link in it; some it does a better job of explaining the concept than MS does.

http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/jpoints.htm

Or just do not use Windows Explorer and use free open source tool like FreeCommander (or others) that can handle the redirection and copy for you.

Simply click Start button and Right-click All Programs. An option should appear in the menu to Open All Users. This is the simplest way that I have found to access the All Users Start Menu.

Got a shortcut for the All Users desktop too, by any chance?

Junction points, hidden files, UAC prompts, can't view but you can copy & paste to, um, what was the question again?

You'd think they could show the actual path in the Properties dialog, like with a normal shortcut. I guess that would be too easy....

Nice writing. Easy to follow and well explained. Thanks.

All I did was revert Vista to the Classic start menu and then click on the Advanced button. You can then add or delete anything you like from the StartMenu without having to into AllUsers. If you add folders to the StartMenu you can open those folders with a double click. I never even thought of looking for AllUsers.

May have been mentioned already, I was short on time and didn't read all responses. I find the easiest way to do this is to click the Start orb, right click All Programs, and click Open All Users. This takes you directly to the All Users folder.

How do you delete a junction point? One of our users created a junction point that points to all the departments data. Is there a way to delete it without touching the data in the actual folder?

Is there a way to write a batch file then that is capable of copying a file from a CD folder to the desktop so it is compatible with windows XP and Windows 7?

The Public path info was what I needed for my script.

To create shortcuts on desktop for all users on a particular machine, Windows 7:

Go into folder options (start/type ???change file and folder options??? and it should show up on list), select ???view???, then check ???view hidden folders??? to be able to see public desktop folder under Users on C drive beforehand. C/Users/Public, etc. The folder will be faint compared to regular folders.

Create shortcut on desktop FIRST, THEN drag into public desktop folder. Enter security credentials. Windows 7 will not allow to copy directly from program file and then choose ???paste shortcut??? into the Public Desktop folder???but it will allow you to drag an already created shortcut. Nice one.

So simple???yet so elusive???and not intuitive.

Thats excellent info, I didn't know about the junctions points either.

I'll use %public%\desktop when pushing shortcuts to multiuser client machines in future.

Thanks!!