Today we are completing the setup of a new Dell Server with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server. The installation is at a small office here in Ellijay Georgia. In addition to the new server the client is having us install 4 new workstations and we need to connect two existing workstations. We continue after the initial server setup with a new OU (organizational unit) for the workstation users. We then create a new policy for those members and redirect the “Desktop” and “My Documents” folders using that group policy. This will automatically keep the user’s desktop and documents on the server so they can be easily included in the daily backups and the shadow copy service. Using shadow copies makes it very easy to recover user data like spreadsheets or documents when the user deletes the file by accident or when the user makes a change to a document that renders the document useless. At that point the user can restore an older version rather than re-create the entire document. Once that’s complete we use the backup wizard to setup the daily backup and the shadow copy scheduled tasks. If you aren’t redirecting user data and using shadow copies you should ask your IT department or support provider why and how you can start, it’s a true life saver at times. One last item for user data, we usually have disk quotas set up on the server to limit the space available to each user. Most small offices don’t have policies in place to restrict personal data like photos or music being stored by their employees. It’s usually a good idea to move the “My Music” folder on each workstation so it’s not redirected to the server and wasting disk space and backup space. In Windows XP you can do this by right clicking the “My Music” folder and choosing cut, then you can navigate to the location you want the files like the C: drive and choose edit on the menu and then paste. Windows will automatically set the registry for the virtual mapping to the new location.
