UEM - creating a user profile

[Toolbox123]

Hi All,

Running a small Horizon environment, 2 RDS servers (RDS1 and RDS2) and 2 connection servers (1 internal and 1 external).

I am looking for the ability for user settings (that they make) follow them from RDS to RDS servers.  I am not using VDI at all, only the published apps.  So what I have read is that UEM is the way to go.

To see if it was working, I disabled the RDS2, logged in, I made some changes to an app, then enabled RDS 2, disabled RDS1 and logged in again and none of my changes where there.  When I look in the network share for profiles, it did create a folder with my username but nothing in it but a log file.  The log file doesn’t show any errors in it, everything looks fine.

Any ideas on what I am missing here?  All the documentation takes about configuring the programs for users but I want them to do it themselves.

[DEMdev]

Hi Toolbox123,

UEM definitely supports the scenario you describe. Could you share the log file (at log level DEBUG), so we can better troubleshoot this?

[Toolbox123]

Hi, 

Here is the log info:

2019-02-12 15:55:49.644 [INFO ] Starting FlexEngine v9.2.1.794 [IFP#aabd3539-43fc2281>>]

2019-02-12 15:55:49.644 [DEBUG] Performing path-based export

2019-02-12 15:55:49.645 [DEBUG]    User: domain\user (A/F), Computer: HZ-RDS01, OS: x64-win2016 (Version 1607, BuildNumber 14393.2312, SuiteMask 10, ProductType 3/7, Lang 0409, IE 11.2312.14393.0, App-V 5.2.0.0, VMware VDM 7.4.0, UEM 9.2.1.794, ProcInfo 1/4/4/4, UTC-08:00S), PTS: 41588/26900/248

2019-02-12 15:55:49.646 [DEBUG]    Policy "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon" is not configured (TS)

2019-02-12 15:55:49.646 [DEBUG]    Policy "Run logon scripts synchronously" is not configured

2019-02-12 15:55:49.650 [DEBUG]    Policy "Devices: Prevent users from installing printer drivers" is enabled

2019-02-12 15:55:49.650 [DEBUG]    Policy "Point and Print Restrictions" is disabled for the computer

2019-02-12 15:55:49.650 [DEBUG]    User policy last applied at 2019-02-12 15:45:32.081 (took 2.944 s)

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Boot time: 2019-02-07 07:11:34.307, Logon time: 2019-02-12 15:45:35.031

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Recursively processing config files from path '\\storage\HzProfiles\uemprofiles\general'

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Using profile archive path '\\storage\HzProfiles\uemprofiles\user\archives'

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Profile archives will be compressed

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Creating 2 backups in path '\\storage\HzProfiles\uemprofiles\user\backups'

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Logging to file '\\storage\HzProfiles\uemprofiles\user\logs'

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    Log file will be overwritten when larger than 512 kilobytes

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    If Flex config files path is not available at logon, log off automatically

2019-02-12 15:55:49.651 [DEBUG]    If profile archive path is not available at logon, skip import but apply user environment settings

2019-02-12 15:55:49.655 [DEBUG] Import status flag indicates success, so performing export

2019-02-12 15:55:49.655 [DEBUG] Clearing import status flag for next import

2019-02-12 15:55:49.661 [DEBUG] Processing pre-export UEM tasks

2019-02-12 15:55:49.666 [DEBUG] No DirectFlex cache found -- not performing DirectFlex exports

2019-02-12 15:55:49.666 [DEBUG] No UEM triggered tasks have been performed

2019-02-12 15:55:49.700 [DEBUG] Deleted application blocking and privilege

Thanks for looking at this!!

[DEMdev]

Hi Toolbox123,

Your configuration looks pretty much OK, but I'm wondering whether you have created any Flex config files? UEM uses a whitelist approach: you need to tell it which settings you would like it to manage for your applications.

There's definitely a learning curve and some amount of time investment to set that up, but there's some functionality that helps you get started with it:

• Easy Start populates your configuration share with some sample config files, so you can get a feel for how things work.
• The Management Console has a number of built-in Application Templates for commonly used applications, and similarly Windows Common Settings to manage settings for many Windows components.
• You can also download configuration templates from a VMware-hosted repository. This was introduced in version 9.5. I see that you're on 9.2.1; any reason to run such an old version?
• Finally, the Application Profiler is a convenient way to create your own Flex config files.

Hope that helps to get you started!

[Toolbox123]

Thanks again!

I haven't created any flex config files.  This is where I am a bit confused.  As an Admin, I don't want to be doing any application configuration, I want the user doing all that.

So in a nut shell, is this procedure:

1. I configure something about the application.

2. This creates the flex config file.

3. This then allows the user to make changes that will be saved for them?

[DEMdev]

The config files tell UEM from which profile locations settings must be persisted (so that they can be restored later on.) This is not about providing specific configuration settings for your users (although we also support that, via predefined settings); it's to have UEM save and restore the configuration settings that your users select themselves.

So, to use Notepad as a simple (but pretty useless 🙂 example:

This tells the UEM agent to save that registry tree into a Notepad.zip file for each user at logoff (or when Notepad exits), and to import that registry info again when the user logs on (or starts Notepad again.)

[Toolbox123]

And just to make things a little more fun, what happens if the application is a very old 3rd party program?

[DEMdev]

Hi Toolbox123,

Ah, you mean "fun" 🙂

Legacy applications that keep their settings in non-standard locations require some additional work. For instance, you can create some scripts to copy the settings between those non-standard locations and a folder in the user profile (so that UEM can be used to roam those settings around). You can use UEM to run those scripts at logoff and logon (or at application exit and launch, for DirectFlex-enabled applications.)