Struggling to deploy files to %appdata% subfolders with GPO

BenjiHare

4/6/24, 3:32 PM

I have a few minor MSOffice projects which require files to exist in various subfolders of %appdata%, and I'm trying to deploy these to a test OU but have been unable to push the files to their respective folders in the test group.

The files exist in

\\svr01.company.internal\shared\test

I created GPOs to push these out to

%appdata%\Local\Microsoft\Office, %appdata%\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook, and %appdata%\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes

respectively, as well as a test.txt to C:\temp as a 'proof of life' type deal.

The test.txt appeared fine, but the other files aren't where they're supposed to be on the test machine, despite multiple restarts, gpupdates, and no obvious errors in gpresult

I have also tried changing the destination path to %userprofile%\AppData\[etc] and %AppDataDir%\[etc], as well as C:\Users\%LogonUser%\AppData\[etc], with no success

I've tried these as both Create and Update options within the GPO, and have tried it both as a computer>preference>file and user>preference>file, yet again to no avail.

397

0 + 5

windows

microsoft-office

group-policy

jfrmilner

4/7/24, 7:00 PM

Are you using Group Policy Preferences Files to do the push? Try using `%AppDataDir%`. (Tip: In GPP Press F3 to see variable table)

BenjiHare

4/11/24, 7:25 AM

@jfrmilner per my post, yes I have tried %AppDataDir% and still not had the desired results

Greg Askew

4/24/24, 1:01 PM

Microsoft created excellent logging for you, documented here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/ask-the-directory-services-team/a-treatise-on-group-policy-troubleshooting-8211-now-with-gpsvc/ba-p/400304 . I'm not sure why a test would have included the C:\Temp folder though, as it appears the need is for the user appdata location (which is applied during logon), not the system appdata location (which is applied during startup, and affected by network failures).

BenjiHare

4/24/24, 1:21 PM

@GregAskew the test.txt in c:\temp was added to make sure that SOMETHING was working because otherwise it wasn't clear if the policy was actually applying anything - getting a file pop up anywhere was basically a sanity check

BenjiHare

4/24/24, 1:23 PM

@GregAskew I'll take a deeper look into logging but so far we're seeing that the policy is applying just fine, so the missing files are causing many scratched chins

Elon Musk

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EN: Struggling to deploy files to %appdata% subfolders with GPO

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