Group policy to add url shortcut with customized icon in start menu?!

[thirdlegstump]

HI AT!! I am looking for an automated way to add a customized shortcut to the start menu in ALL USERS account WITH a CUSTOMIZED ICON!

It should be persistent in that if a user decides to delete it, it will return upon login.

What's the best way to do this?

 

[spyordie007]

You could create a computer startup script that contains your .lnk file and a batch file. The batch file would check to see if the icon exists and if it doesnt copy it over. Quick and dirty:

IF EXIST "%allusersprofile%\start menu\my shortcut.lnk" GOTO END
copy "my shortcut.lnk" "%allusersprofile%\start menu\my shortcut.lnk"
:END

If they delete it than it would return the next time the computer was restarted. You dont want to have a login scrip copying a file to the all users profile because it will fail if they arent an admin.

 

[Brazen]

also, if they aren't admin, they won't be able to delete it anyway (none of your users should be admin).

 

[thirdlegstump]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
You could create a computer startup script that contains your .lnk file and a batch file. The batch file would check to see if the icon exists and if it doesnt copy it over. Quick and dirty:

IF EXIST "%allusersprofile%\start menu\my shortcut.lnk" GOTO END
copy "my shortcut.lnk" "%allusersprofile%\start menu\my shortcut.lnk"
:END

If they delete it than it would return the next time the computer was restarted. You dont want to have a login scrip copying a file to the all users profile because it will fail if they arent an admin.

I'll give it a try. Thanks : )

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
You could create a computer startup script that contains your .lnk file and a batch file. The batch file would check to see if the icon exists and if it doesnt copy it over. Quick and dirty:

IF EXIST "%allusersprofile%\start menu\my shortcut.lnk" GOTO END
copy "my shortcut.lnk" "%allusersprofile%\start menu\my shortcut.lnk"
:END

If they delete it than it would return the next time the computer was restarted. You dont want to have a login scrip copying a file to the all users profile because it will fail if they arent an admin.

correction, the path should be:
%allusersprofile%\start menu\programs\my shortcut.lnk

 

[thirdlegstump]

question, in this script, where should the actual lnk file be located?

 

[spyordie007]

In the policy along with the batch file

 

[thirdlegstump]

Hm.. not sure if I'm gettin you here. I've created a .bat file with the filename url.bat located in a share where UNC path to share is and is read only by everyone in the domain.

\\server100\folder\url.bat

The batch file contains only the code:

IF EXIST "%allusersprofile%\start menu\url.lnk" GOTO END
copy "\\server100\folder\url.lnk" "%allusersprofile%\start menu\url.lnk"
:END

I load the url.bat file via User Configuration Logon script for an OU GP and not directly as a login script for an AD user. I browse to the file located in Netlogon and enter no parameters.

It doesn't work. Nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?

 

[thirdlegstump]

got it figured out. thanks.

 

[spyordie007]

I would have just stuck url.lnk and url.bat in the GPO rather than out on a "normal" network share, but that works.