Managing Libraries

Administrators can control which default libraries are available directly on a user's Start menu by configuring the following Group Policy settings found under User Configuration\Policies \Administrative Templates\Start Menu And Taskbar:

• Remove Documents Icon From Start Menu
• Remove Pictures Icon From Start Menu
• Remove Music Icon From Start Menu
• Remove Videos Link From Start Menu

These policy settings will be applied to the targeted users after their next logon. Administrators can also hide selected default libraries such as Music and Videos in business environments where such libraries are not appropriate. However, hiding a library from view only removes the library from the navigation pane of Windows Explorer. To hide a default library such as the Music library, use Group Policy to run the following script the next time the targeted users log on.

@echo off
%SystemDrive%
cd\
cd %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries
attrib +h Music.library-ms

Note If you hide a library using this script, you should also remove it from the users' Start menus.

Administrators can deploy additional custom libraries to users by manually creating Library Description files for them and then deploying them to users by using either logon scripts or Group Policy preferences to copy the Library Description files to the %UserProfile%\Appdata \Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries folder on the targeted computers.

Administrators that have environments in which known folders are redirected to server shares that are not indexed remotely and cannot be made available for offline use can configure libraries to use basic-level functionality by enabling the following Group Policy setting:

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer \Turn off Windows Libraries Features That Rely On Indexed File Data Note that library functionality is severely degraded if this policy setting is enabled, even for libraries that contain only indexed files. However, if your environment does not support local indexing, enabling this Group Policy may help minimize user feedback, indicating that an unsupported location is included in a library, and can help reduce network impact from grep searches of remote nonindexed locations.

Enabling this policy disables the following library functionality:

• Searching libraries in the Start menu
• Applying Arrange By views other than By Folder and Clear Changes
• Using Library Search Filter suggestions other than Date Modified and Size
• Using the Unsupported tag in the Library Management dialog box
• Applying rich functionality to user-created libraries
• Viewing file content snippets in the Content View mode
• Notifying users that unsupported locations are included in libraries