It has been a busy week for email. Received another good question yesterday:
Saw an article you wrote on IntelliAdmin and wanted to ask a follow-up. I have a set of 12 local Windows XP machines and I’d like them all to use the same set of Favorites (without users being able to add or subtract sites). I have a small server running Windows 2000 and (ideally) I’d like for each machine to have to reach out to that server IP to obtain the current IE favorites…. Not only would that give me some static control over the current Favorites, but it would also allow me to update that list in one location (without having to go in and log-in as an admin to each machine and import that folder each time I have to make a change).
From your article, it would almost seem possible to do this, but… Or am I making things too difficult? Is there an easier way for this newbie to do it?
Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance you could give…
-Storms
I actually have a similar situation at home…and while I could go through the registry and update each of my computers…well that is too much of a pain…so I decided to throw an app together that will do it for me.
I will call it “Redirect Favorites 1.0”. (I know, I know, what an original name) Its operation is simple. Launch the application, and set the folder you would like your favorites to be pulled from. In this case it would be a network share:
Make your change, and click apply. Now simply close all open windows of IE. When you re-open Internet Explorer it will be pointing to your new folder.
One thing I have not tested – what will happen if many different users are using the same favorites folder. You will need to experiment and see if IE complains. Either way, if you do run into problems you can simply run the program and reset it back to the default setting.
But for now I can easily throw this app on my USB flash drive and set all my computers at home to point to the same spot. That way I can get to my good list of bookmarks
Download it from here – as always no spyware, adware – only freeware goodness.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I realize this is a little bit of a different solution but I wanted the same type of solution but broader to include my laptop at work as well.
I found FolderSync. It uses an ftp site to share IE Favorites among multiple PCs. I use my own ftp site. Their forums suggest that their paid ftp service is problematic.
I wrote a blog post about it here: http://blog.benmoore.info/2005/03/my-favorites.html