UIA-Only Writable Volume Preventing DEM From Applying Network Printer Changes

[onfire247]

Horizon: 7.11.0.15231595

vSphere: 6.7.0.40000

App Volumes: 4.1.0.57

Writable Volume: UIA-Only

DEM: 9.10.0.921

I am having an issue with the UIA-Only writable volume and the DEM>Personalization>General>Windows Settings>Network Printers conflicting with each other. For my test, I am using an AD installed networked Canon printer. I am making the following changes: change the printer to the default printer, and change the output method from print to store with a mailbox setting of 5.

Upon logging out, I can see that DEM successfully captures the changes I made:

Mailbox:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections\,,PrintSrv01,GC 4D01 IT Canon iR3225]
"DevMode"=hex:5c,00,5c,00,50,00,72,00,69,00,6e,00,74,00,53,00,72,00,76,00,30,\

Default Printer:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows]
"Device"="\\\\PrintSrv01\\GC 4D01 IT Canon iR3225,winspool,Ne02:"

When I login with my writable volume disabled, I can see both settings successfully implemented within the printer GUI. When I log in with a UIA-Only writable volume, however, the settings are not applied successfully. As far as the GUI is concerned, I made neither change. As a result, when I log out, the changes that I made are lost.

Why is the writable volume preventing DEM from pushing these printer changes?

[onfire247]

Working with VMware support, I was able to determine that the DEM registry settings for the printer was being overwritten by the registry settings saved by the writable volume. I was able to resolve the issue by doing two things. First, I upgrade the App Volumes agent from 4.1.057 to 4.2 (it communicates fine with the 4.1 App Volumes server). Second, I added a custom snapvol.cfg in the golden image (C:\Program Files (x86)\CloudVolumes\Agent\Config\Custom\) with the following exclusions:

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\PRINTERS
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\PRINTERS\DevModes2\
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\PRINTERS\Connections\
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Devices
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PrinterPorts
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows\Devices
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\UserSelectedDefault
exclude_process_name=spoolsv.exe

As a side note, if you're wondering what exactly the UIA-only writable volume captures, it captures everything in the C: drive (thus #virtualize=\ at the top) except what is excluded in the following three snapvol.cfg files:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\CloudVolumes\Agent\Config\Default\
• C:\Program Files (x86)\CloudVolumes\Agent\Config\Default\uia
• C:\Program Files (x86)\CloudVolumes\Agent\Config\Custom\