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vBritinUSA
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AppVolumes Writable with UEM

If I am using an AppVolumes writable UIA & Profile template for a user. If I need to configure something within that profile %APPDATA% can I still use UEM? I am trying to figure out if the Writable is connected to the user before or after UEM runs at login or there is not a sequence and I am over complicating this.

Thanks in advance.

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PFS
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You could set that particular path as an exclusion in the writable volume, and it won't override UEM either way.

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PFS
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You could set that particular path as an exclusion in the writable volume, and it won't override UEM either way.

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DEMdev
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Hi vBritinUSA,

UEM will only get to run at logon once the writable volume has been attached, so you could definitely use UEM to provide certain (default) settings in AppData, for instance.

vBritinUSA
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I wasn't aware you could exclude items within the writable. How would you do that?

I assume you edit the Template?

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ijdemes
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Hi vBritinUSA​,

You can read the blog below to find more information on this.

Using the VMware App Volumes snapvol.cfg File to Customize Writable Volumes | VMware End-User Comput...


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Twitter: @ivandemes
Blog: https://www.ivandemes.com
Ray_handels
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I see that you are trying to exclude User profile information. The blog only points out information that can be excluded from other files and folders from the writable.

Excluding registry settings for the user is NOT possible because the user has his own ntuser.dat file. You cannot exclude there.

And although documentation states that you can exclude folders from the profile of the writable this only worked from version 2.15, older version do NOT exclude profile information. This was a hidden feature Smiley Happy....

If you do want to exclude folders from the profile use the following syntax, that's the only way that it works, yes we found out the hard way (despite all other blog posts about it Smiley Happy).

#User profile exclusions added

exclude_uwv_file=\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe

That being said, we use writables and UEM both. Because the writable is error prone, mostly in the profile section part, we decided to use UEM profile cleanup. This way you have best of both worlds. We use UEM for application settings of applications that we deliver. Because we use profile cleanup we can use UEM to restore application settings. If you were to not exclude or remove those folders you cannot restore UEM settings as they are stored in the writable.

We use the writable as the "catch all" for all other profile related information or user installed application settings.. If you do need to remove the writable you at least have all users settings being restored.

Do keep in mind that this will giev you a logon penalty as you are doing 2 profile solutions. UEM depends on what you store (just check the logon time in the log file of UEM), the writable will add about 3 to 4 seconds onto logon.

PFS
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Hey @Ray_handels,

Thanks very much for that info. I am curious to see if I can capture specific things in the AppData folder ONLY with a writable volume. Do you happen to know what I would specify as under virtualize in the snapvol.cfg to specify a path in AppData?

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Ray_handels
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No, the snapvol.cfg does not work like that.

You would need to do the other way around and exclude everything except the folder you would like to capture using the writable. Or at least that's the way it seems to work as far as I can see.

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