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ntripp13
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Import user's local profile to UEM when implementing UEM

What's the best way to import the user's current setting into uem?

12 Replies
Sravan_k
Expert
Expert

this was interesting question,

as per me, we can not do all user settings because there will be a potential risk on user profile corruption.

you can move your favorites, documents and some other handful things.

Regards    

ntripp13
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

thanks, I like the features. I am looking for the method I can use to bring a user's settings as they are today into UEM. When I do an initial install I actually end up with blank settings. I want the settings that are currently on the user's desktop to import to UEM.

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Sravan_k
Expert
Expert

glad you are using UEM, it was very powerful tool.

as I mentioned above, there is a potential cause on profile corruption we have to be careful doing it, but let me give a shot on it.

need more information on your old and new environment like versions of view, image (version, type) and what level of layer technology you are using.

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pchapman
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I think you are missing the point of how UEM works.  You need to create FlexConfig for all of the applications you want to import data from.  It is a bit of work up front but worth it in the end.  You do not want to create one generic FlexConfig all all settings in the user profile.

ntripp13
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I don't think what I am saying is so hard to understand. I have created configs. User's have setting they like. In order to get them up an running on UEM so they can roam to additional machines they need those settings imported. This is an obvious barrier to user acceptance. Why would users accept having their settings wiped out? I'm saying I want the local settings saved into the UEM share one time. Once their current settings can be imported once the advantages are obvious. What about what I am asking is so difficult to understand?

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ntripp13
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Right now we have normal Windows 7 Pro desktops, with Grid. They aren't getting new desktops, but every user has a second desktop. With the second desktop using UEM will allow the settings to be the same on both.  Each user has settings they will want to keep on their current desktops and we will want to save that information into UEM once. 

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Sravan_k
Expert
Expert

Got it,

In your case user's are going to use two machines.

I don't know what you are going to use OS version for new machine.

But based on information that I got from you, I can say you can copy all content from old desktops, documents, downloads and favorites[IE bookmarks] to new machine respectively [by doing this there will not be any data correction as of I know].

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ntripp13
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I told you the OS. I said they are not getting new machines.

  • We have persistent desktops
  • windows 7 pro
  • currently not using UEM
  • We want to use UEM
  • We want current persistent desktop settings to import into UEM

Not sure what the misunderstanding is but maybe bullet points are easier for you to read.

cstalhood3
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Once you enable UEM, it should capture whatever settings are in the local profile.

Have you seen How to migrate VMware Persona Management to VMware User Environment Manager (2118056) | VMware KB  ?

ntripp13
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

makes sense, I think this may not have happened in my tests because I had been testing with AppVolumes and the accounts used created settings in UEM when I moved the persistent machine to use UEM it pulled down those settings and overwrote the local settings

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sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

I've never done it, but what about using the optional UEM component called SyncTool. You could install this on there computer and configure that to talk to your UEM shares. Then as they logoff your UEM configuration files should archive there settings and they could be available else where. Thats all UEM really does is zips up registry and files on logoff and reimports them on logon.

Introduction to VMware User Environment Manager SyncTool

alsmk2
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

To import existing user settings you just need to deploy UEM to their existing desktops. We've done this many times when moving clients from physical to VDI desktop.

- Create your UEM config & Profile shares as normal.

- Create a condition set that you can apply to anything under the "User Environment" tab that prevents those changes applying to the old desktops (you want UEM to extract the existing user profile customization's from the old environment - not apply settings such as drive mappings, printers and ADMX settings).

- Configure the config files under the Personalization tab to extract the bits of their existing profiles that you need.

- Ensure Direct Flex is not enabled on any of the config files (to stop it fighting with any other profile mechanism such as Personna Management or Roaming Profiles - this was recommended by VMware, who have a custom ADMX file to disable it globally should you want it. You can only get that by mailing support).

- Leave UEM running in the old environment for a few weeks to allow it create as many profiles as possible.

If you've implemented it right, users can move between their old and new desktop without losing anything, and without you having to manually copy files.

The only problem with importing existing parts of a users profile is that you can inadvertently import issues too. For example, you could end up importing a load of random files that a user had in their profile - have seen this countless times, which then leads to long log on times. These issues may have gone unnoticed on their old desktop if it is persistent, possibly with a cached profile.

I find using an app such as WinDirStat to look at the profile share is a great way of finding UEM zip files that are huge (Chrome configs being the biggest offender most of the time). Once you have identified these, you can either edit your config files to exclude the clutter (if they are not randomly named files), or you can get the user to delete them from their profile prior to migrating them to VDI.

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