I know there is a group policy where I can map a specific share. What if I want the group policy to create a folder on that share and map it during log on?
I know there must be a way to do this in PowerShell. Or would I not have to even worry about using PowerShell? Could I just simply specify UNC path in the group policy \\servername\share\$username. Should I expect windows to automatically create the folder and map it for the user or is this more complicated?
You can achieve this via AD Users and Computers GUI and via Powershell. What I did in the past is open AD U & C GUI, right click on the new AD user, go to Profile and type in the information below.
What I did in the GUI is select "Connect" under Home Folder, choose my preferred drive letter (in this example, G:) and assign the following user share \ \VandelayInc\Users\%username%. What this does is create the user folder for you in the Users share location specified and map the user folder to the G: drive.
I now do this in Powershell, manually because turnover is little to nothing where I work, using the code below.
Set-ADUser art.vandelay -HomeDrive 'G:' -HomeDirectory \\VandelayInc\Users\%username%
If you wanted to automate the code, I'm sure you could, by supplying variables you know won't change like your Home Drive and Home Directory.
#Establish your static variables
$homedrive='G:'
$homedirectory='\\VandelayInc\Users\%username%'
#Establish your non-static variable the user name
$User='Art.Vandelay'
#Set Home folder for User
Set-ADUser $User -HomeDrive $homedrive -HomeDirectory $homedirectory
Again, the above isn't the best automated script, but it works and only requires opening and changing the $User variable. Either way, these above options will accomplish the goal of having Windows to create the folder and map it for the user.
