During Citrix Synergy 2012 in San Francisco it was argued numerous times by Shawn Bass that redirecting Favorites to the home folder is a very bad idea. Shawn mentioned that Internet Explorer causes an extensive number of calls on your file server when browsing so I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into this topic.
Folder redirection to home folder is the rule of thumb to improve logon speed and create a better user experience across platforms. That being said, redirecting AppData should be avoided at all costs.
To redirect or not is a sensible topic and I think it would be a great Geek Speak Session with CTP Shawn Bass and Aaron Parker vs Citrix Consulting Services.
What happens under the hood :
To illustrate this I’ve been using Internet Explorer 9 and Process Monitor on my Windows 7 laptop. The filter beeing used is Path IS C:\Users\Administrator\Favorites.
When opening Internet Explorer you’ll see 13 calls in Process Monitor.