User Profile Duplication after Refresh or Recompose on View 4.5

[MarioHidalgo]

Environment

• Windows Vista 32-bit virtual desktop image.
• vSphere ESXi Ver 4.1
• VMware View 4.5
• Windows Server 2008 STD
• Two ESXi hosts Dell R910
• Smart Card Authentication with Single Sign On from soft client to the virtual desktop
• SAN: Dell/EMC Clarion with three Tiers of storage: FC disk for servers, SSD for replicas, SATA drives for linked-clones/temp disks.
• User profiles are redirected to persistent disks.

Issue

• We create a desktop pool of 10 virtual machines from parent VM.
• Users log in the first time and everything works as expected.
• User creates a document on the desktop and adds a link to Favorites.
• User logs off.
• We recompose or refresh the desktop.
• User logs back in after the process is done. Windows creates a second profile on the persistent disk. If we refresh the desktop again and the user logs back in, a third profile is created e.g. username, username.domain, username.domain.001, etc.
• User can get access to the all duplicated profiles and the changes are there so the profile is kept. No access rights issue.
• Problem happens only when we recompose or refresh. If we do not recompose or refresh, the user logs in with the same profile (issue does not exist)

Troubleshooting Steps Taken

• Checked that the parent VM did not have any domain or user profile before snapshoting it for linked-clone provisioning.
• Checked View Agent version installed was the latest one.
• Checked AD permissions.
• Rebuilt the parent VM from scratch to ensure that the image was as prestine as it can be.
• Virtual machine Windows License is activated.

Another problem shown is that the Backup Tab of the View Manager Configuration (View Configuration > Server > Edit > Backup) shows the backup folder location, but does not allow us to change it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[kgsivan]

Hope you have created a Dedicated Pool.(Other wise User Data redirection will not happen)

On the VM , where agent is installed, check the PofileList path is correct or not. <The path should point to the Persistetn Disk>

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Also what type of customization is used here (SysPrep / QuickPrep)

could pls attach logs ?

Regarding backup path:

The path is not allowded to changed through UI (But can change through preference file). alternatively you cna try the command line options for the backup. Refer View Admin guide , page 259

[kgsivan]

For LDAP backup configuration here you go. http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1010285

Regards

Siva

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[MarioHidalgo]

Thank you both for the reply.

Yes, it is a dedicated pool.

Yes, the registry key points to the persistent disk.

We are using QuickPrep. With Sysprep, although the provisioning finishes without a problem, the single sign on process stops when the credentials are not passed to the virtual machine from the soft client. The VM shows two tiles, Other User and VMware SSO User.

I will work on the logs.

[MarioHidalgo]

Siva,

What part of the logs do you want to see? Do you want me to attach them all?

[kgsivan]

Agent and broker logs

[regnak]

Hi,

On your Master VM, before powering down and creating the snapshot, do you log in as local admin and delete all network profiles? Don't use a network profile to configure changes, only local admin.

Mike

[MarioHidalgo]

Thank you all for the replies; the issue was resolved. The client had an image that was created accidentally with a beta or RC version of the View Agent; although that version was removed; VMware support determined that the uninstall program never deleted some registry keys which somehow were causing a conflict with the registry key settings of the new version.

Building the image from scratch resolved it.

Thanks,

[idle-jam]

thanks for sharing this, i guess it's a better practice to always get a clean golden image when there is a new version of view agent being released.

[trurodh]

I had the same problem when creating an automated linked clone pool with persistent disks.  It was only happening with my profile so I knew it had something to do with the image and the fact that I had built it.  What I found was that if you look at your parent image and go to regedit, then go to

HKLM/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/WINDOWS NT/PROFILELIST - you will see in there a number of SIDS.  Check to see if one or a few of them belong to the user or users affected.  I removed my profile and I am no longer getting the duplicate profile.  This will save you from having to rebuild the image.

Hope this helps!

Rod