In non-persistent environment with VMware App Volumes Writable Volume (or similar product), OneDrive fails to get configure Sync folder and through an error says “Your OneDrive folder can’t be created in the location you selected”.

There are few ways to fix the issue.
The first one is to assign a drive letter to the Writable Volume to fix it. But this is not the solution that everybody prefers due to security reasons. The end user can explore the drive, even though it made hidden for them.

The second option is creating a Sync Folder in the Master image and provide sufficient permission on it. Also, enforce OneDrive client to use that folder as a default location. This OneDrive setting can be achieved by Group Policy.

This article will show how-to for the second option.

To start with, create a Folder on the C: drive or any other preferred location. I am biased with C: drive location as this is for the non-persistent environment and it will be easy to demonstrate. The folder I created in the lab is called OneDriveSync.

Now it’s time to set the permission to the folder. We need to provide sufficient permission to the Users (Local Computer\Users) account. By default, Computer\Users will not get the Modify Permission.

To make my life much easier, I grant Full Control to the Computer\Users (It’s for non-persistent). If your security policy requires tightening on it, you can explore the right permission require to complete the task.

Now it is time to fix the OneDriveSync folder as the default folder for OneDrive client wizard. This requires downloading OneDrive admx files. Place the OneDrive.admx and OneDrive.adml to group policy central store. Please do not use the files from the %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\BuildNumber\adm\  location mentioned in the number of Microsoft Article ( i failed with this one on my lab). Rather download it from Microsoft download site.

 

Time to manually Edit the OneDrive.admx file. Please look for the policy named “DefaultRootDir”. You will require adding newly created folder path on string variable and the Tenant ID on key (both are highlighted in the screenshot below). If you have multiple Tenant ID, please use the OneDrive_MultiTenant.admx.

It’s time to set the policies for users. Open the Group Policy Management Console / Editor. Go to User Configuration > Policies >  Administrative Templates > OneDrive. Enable the “Set the default location of the OneDrive Folder”. This setting will set the default folder set on the admx file. If prefers, Enable “Prevent users from changing the location of their OneDrive”. This will prevent users to select their desire folder for sync, which will through the error mentioned early.