Linked Clone User Data Redirection to Persistent Disks

[MoffattThomas]

Can anyone out there that is using VMWare View with Linked Clones and User Data Disks provide specifics about how VMWare goes about doing the redirection of the user data.  I have researched this to death and can find no documentation or even a discussion that addresses the specifics.

I need to know exactly WHAT it redirects and HOW it does the redirection.

I have come across a vague mentioning of the following:

1. It modifies the user profile path in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Profile List
2. It also redirects the All Users profile

Can someone confirm or refute the above?  Can someone shed more detailed light on exactly what it is doing?  Is it also modifying the "Shell Folders" registry keys?  Is it strictly doing the redirection via the registry or is it using another mechanism?

Any insight you can provide would be greatly appreciated.  TIA.

[kgsivan]

>> 1. It modifies the user profile path in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Profile List

Absolutely true. It modifies 'Default' , 'profile Directory' and 'Public'  string values to referer a path to persistent Disk

>> 2. It also redirects the All Users profile

No, It does not redirects 'All Users' profile

While provisioning View composer simply modifies the above mentioned registry keys. (This even can do for a phycical machine manually)

With this registry change any new user logins to the system will creates its user profile on the new path. The users who logged-in before this change, All Users etc will have their profile directory in default location

Shell will always use the users home directory only (something like D:\Users\<username> )

[MoffattThomas]

Thank you for the reply. Just to be clear, View does not do any shell folder redirection? I understand that the default for the user shell folders is to place them in the profile, so if the profile is redirected, then so are the shell folders (such a My Documents). But it does not explicitly modify any of the shell registry keys? Such as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.

If it is modifying "Public" then it is redirecting the the desktop and folders of the "all users profile" (in Windows 7 known as the common profile or public profile).

If it is modifying "Default" then it is also redirecting the default profile - from which other profiles are generated.

I am surprised it is not also modifying ProgramData. That folder would be a must for a complete profile capture because it holds program preferences for the user (A 64-bit Windows 7-aware program stores User-specific configurations in a sub-directory under C:\ProgramData).

Again, thank you for the reply, it is greatly appreciated.

[bogd]

I am surprised it is not also modifying ProgramData.  That folder would be a must for a complete profile capture

As far as I understand from the documentation, that is not true. The application data is stored in \users\AppData (which is correctly caught and redirected by View). The ProgramData folder stores global settings (valid for all users), and doesn't seem to be used by too many applications.

That being said however, my experience with Windows administration is quite limited. Maybe someone more experienced can step in and clarify this issue...