[GIS] Is it possible to change where the Database connection folder is looking at

Question

In my workplace, we have just upgraded to Windows 7, we have a roaming profile, so all the files that are in the Application Data folder are in a folder called "\username\redirect\Folders.." also in this is the ESRI folder that contains the .sde files for the database connections.
We have teams that share generic mxd's and one problem that we have found is that when a user adds data from their database connection e.g.

\JoeBloggs\Redirect\AppData\ESRI\ArcCatalog\GIS.sde

and then saves it, when another user tries to open the mxd the data source is broken, as the 2nd user does not have access to JoeBloggs folder.

My solution is to create a new folder that everyone has access to, and place the .sde connections in that folder, but how do I make the Database connections node in ArcCatalog look at this new folder rather then the folder in AppData\ESRI\ArcCatalog.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Answer 1

In theory all you need to do is point ArcGIS at the environment variable for that path rather than the explicit path. So rather than point at:

C:\Users{username}\AppData\Local

you'd instead use:

%LOCALAPPDATA%

I'm not sure if you can get ArcCatalog to do point at this though. Wikipedia has a page on them - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppData#Default_Values_on_Microsoft_Windows

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The "proper" solution however is to use a networked area and store everything on there; its much easier.