Starting Fall 2024, the use of folder redirection was discontinued on Engineering Workstation (EWS) Windows lab computers. Here is the official announcement: https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/30/1777357830.html.

What is folder redirection?

Folder redirection is an optional Windows feature commonly used in enterprise Windows environments, where common Windows user profile folders (such as Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.) are stored remotely on a file server, and their contents are shown to users logging into a local computer as if those contents were stored in the corresponding folders within the local user's profile.

This allows users to save files to the Desktop (or other profile folders) on one computer, and see and use those files on other, similarly-configured computers on the same network.

Different organizations may implement folder redirection differently. In the EWS Windows environment, the specific folders redirected were:

• Contacts
• Desktop
• Documents
• Downloads
• Favorites

Why was folder redirection discontinued in the EWS labs?

There are several reasons:

• Under certain circumstances it could cause confusion, or in the worst scenarios, duplication or loss of files.
• The redirected data was stored in the users' EWS home directories, which have historically had a low space quota, often resulting in errors resulting from lack of space. Additionally, EWS home directory quotas are shared between EWS Windows and EWS Linux environments (including EWS FastX and EWS Citrix services), which exacerbated the space issue.
• Survey data collected from students indicated that folder redirection was not a critical feature of EWS environments.
• Nowadays, there are far better file storage solutions available, which are more modern, flexible, and which feature much greater capacity and accessibility across devices.

What does this mean for me?

Currently, EWS home directories are still fully accessible from both EWS Windows and Linux lab computers and other remote environments. On Windows, EWS home directory content is accessed via the U: drive, in the File Explorer application.

If you logged into EWS Windows computers prior to Fall 2024, then you can still see and access the content of these previously-redirected folders in the Windows portion of your EWS home directory. For more information about accessing your EWS Windows and Linux home directory content, see EWS Labs, Home Directory Disk Quota.

Starting Fall 2024 and onward, content saved to the Desktop on EWS Windows computers (and Documents, Downloads, etc.) will no longer sync to other EWS Windows computers. These folders will no longer be automatically created within your EWS home directory. If desired, they can be removed after moving/backing up any data in them which you want to keep.

On EWS Windows computers, any files you want to keep must be stored either in your U: drive, or in an external storage solution. Both EWS Windows and Linux lab computers may be wiped and re-imaged to a default state at any time without notice in order to restore functionality for courses. Any content stored locally on re-imaged computer, outside of your EWS home directory, will be lost permanently, with no option for recovery.

For most file storage needs, we highly recommend using your University OneDrive account, as the storage space is effectively unlimited, and the OneDrive application is installed by default on all EWS Windows computers. For more information and other storage options, see EWS Labs, Home Directory Disk Quota.

Short URL for this page: https://go.illinois.edu/ews-folder-redirection