Best way to deal with user profiles?

[VArjan]

I am getting a bit confused with the user profiles… What should I store where and how to get it there.

Also I am facing a slow logon. “Preparing your desktop” takes a long time. And my pins are not working most of the time.

This is what I would like to achieve:

• (very)Fast logon
• User profile and settings saved on the network and/or writable volume
• Pins should work
• Floating desktop pool, VM is removed after use

So you have:

• Writable volumes (what is stored in here?)
• Redirection to file server using GPO
• VMware UEM, is this replacing writable volumes of folder redirection or not?
• Persona Management, I have not looked into this at all. Do I need this as well?

I also don’t understand the slow logon in View PCoIP with App volumes. When I logon with the same user to my GI console the logon is very fast (les then 10 sec, 1^st logon a lot longer)

I have tried App Volumes 2.5.2, 2.6, 2.7 and now I am using 2.9.

View is running on 6.0.2.

So what is the best combination to get everything working nicely?

[Lieven]

As for now I am using Persona Management in all the setups I do. I find it very easy to setup, it does what it needs to do and it also reduces the log-on times.

I have written a blog article including a script to create the persona management and redirected folders with the required permissions: http://ituda.com/vmware-horizon-view-script-to-create-persona-management-repositories-shares-and-per...‌

I try to stay away as much as possible from writable volumes as I have seen some problems with de-taching the writable volumes when users log off. Writable volumes also do not support VMotion/DRS.

According to the release note VMware Appvolumes 2.9 will also be the last version which will support profiles in writable volumes.

[VArjan]

How is Persona Management different from User Environment Manager (UEM)?

Or should/can they work together?

[TedH256]

I too am wondering what the difference is between UEM (Is that the immidio piece?) and persona management?

[Gaurav_Baghla]

This is usually an open Ended question and I will try to add as much as to the best of my knowledge

* UEM you are only saving the personal settings of the user and not all of the other garbage which normally resides in a user profile. This way a user will always have fast login times.

  *UEM is designed to manage everything in the profile of the user, this means also user data like Chrome and Firefox bookmarks(UEM has a built-in template for IE Favourites).

*UEM is similar to Persona" it's not true. UEM is not working with Folder Redirection except for My Documents and My Pictures, but this has something to do with optimal login performance.

*UEM can be used to manage printers, drive mappings and applications settings.

*Maybe it's a good thing to look at the Internal Hands on Lab Training you can follow. You can go to http://labs.hol.vmware.com/eucsolutions/catalogs/lab/1934 and search for VMware User Environment Manager. I think this will clear things up.

Now Everyone have there point of View but if you use UEM, there is no need to use Roaming Profiles or Persona Management any more.UEM can be used to manage printers, drive mappings and applications settings.May be it is better to use Folder Redirection...""You can use the default Microsoft Folder Redirection GPO to configure that...""

Here is a link to the Deployment Guide and would take maximum 60 minutes to test.

http://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/files/2015/04/VMW_15Q2_TD_User-Environment-Manager_042415_FINAL.p...

We have a process to migrate from persona to UEM if interested

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=211805...

Apart from this Slow logon for Appvolumes .

There was known issue and that was resolved .

Are you using App Volumes Broker Integration Service ?

If the answer is Yes could you please remove it

If the answer is no could you please try it

AppVolumes will continue to function with\Without Broker Service but ideally it is for best performance.

Hopefully this should help you. Please feel free to add more details and I will try to check  what else I can add.

Regards

Gaurav Baghla

[dmuligan]

Hi,

this thread seems very relevant to me even when a couple of years have passed.

Nowadays, we have the same tools to deal with user profiles. How are you or your customers dealing with it ?

When I have to keep .ost files I usually go with writable volumes and UEM, and that is most of the times. What are your experiences with writables volumes with user profiles ?

[Ray_handels]

I think that it heavily depends on your use case.

If your users are not local administrators or you have no intentions to let them install applications for themselves the use case for writables is less relevant.

We are using writables for everyone because of 2 reasons.

1. They can install applications by themselves and also have all settings for these applications they installed. No matter what profile management tool you use it won't be able to capture settings for applications the user installed itself and you are not aware of these applications.

2. Some applications (looking at you Google) store information in the localappdata and accumalate a large amount of data. The google settings can add up to a few 100 MB's. If you are providing it using UEM you could end up with an applications that takes ages to start because it needs to be copied from the UEM manager server towards the agent.

The best thing about writables is that it is a catch all principle. The worst thing about writables is that it is a catch all principle.. You can get some strange issues but for us the the downside of these issues doesn't weigh up the benefits we get from using writables.

No matter how large your profile is, when using writables it is there almost instantly (you just attach and merge a virtual disk) with total freedom for the user.

[HussamRabaya]

I agree with everybody  it heavily depends on your use case.

For normal users who’s is not allowed to install application using writable volume will not be the full solution and you have to mix app volume with UEM to get the better login

UEM is good profile management solution and provide better login time comparing it to Microsoft roaming profile

From my side I use UEM with MS folder redirection  writable only for outlook indexes and sometime for OST files as usually we configure outlook online mode or cache mode in folder redirection ,for Fast logon and to enhance login time have a look in the group policy settings  

Thing become complicated when we start deal with applications that store settings under local or local low as java or Google  -as Ray mentioned- so you have to find workaround from the application to redirect the setting to user/profile folder or to use UEM setting which will increase the login time badly especially with large file settings, so there is no direct solution for everyone and it have to be solved case by case  

[TTC-Seth]

I'm new to this myself but I'm finding there's a good blend of UEM & Volumes.

UEM is best to control settings/favorites/etc for various apps.

A writable volume is good for keeping things that are needed (and quickly) but can be discarded if need be and don't need be protected by backup:
IE: Outlook OST files and Search Index.  You don't want them copying back and forth all the time via UEM.

You don't want the system regenerating them from scratch with each logon so this is where the writable is good.  If something's corrupted, you can kill the writable and let it regenerate the OST and index, etc.