Synchronization policy settings
The Synchronization section describes policy settings for specifying which files and folders in a users profile are synchronized between the system where the profile is installed and the user store.
Directories to synchronize
Be default, Profile Management synchronizes the user profile between the system it is installed on and the user store. If you exclude a folder from the synchronization, this policy lets you include the subfolders of the excluded folder back to the synchronization.
Paths on this list must be relative to the user profile. Wildcards in folder names are supported but are not applied recursively.
If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this policy is not configured here or in the .ini file, only non-excluded folders in the user profile are synchronized.
Files to synchronize
Be default, Profile Management synchronizes the user profile between the system it is installed on and the user store. If you exclude a folder from the synchronization, this policy lets you include the files inside the excluded folder back to the synchronization.
Paths on this list must be relative to the user profile. Wildcards are supported in file names and in folder names, but only wildcards in file names are applied recursively. Wildcards cannot be nested.
Examples:
-
AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\Access.qatspecifies a file below a folder that is excluded in the default configuration -
AppData\Local\MyApp\*.cfgspecifies all files with the extension.cfgin the profile folderAppData\Local\MyAppand its subfolders
Disabling this policy has the same effect as enabling it and configuring an empty list.
If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this policy is not configured here or in the .ini file, only non-excluded files in the user profile are synchronized.
Folders to mirror
This policy lets you solve issues involving any transactional folder (also known as a referential folder). That folder contains interdependent files, where one file references the other.
Mirroring folders enables Profile Management to process a transactional folder and its contents as a single entity, avoiding profile bloat. For example, you can mirror the Internet Explorer cookies folder so that Index.dat is synchronized with the cookies that it indexes. In these situations the “last write wins.” So files in mirrored folders that have been modified in more than one session are overwritten by the last update, resulting in loss of profile changes.
For example, the following table describes how Index.dat references cookies while a user browses the Internet:
| Scenario | How Index.dat references cookies | |
|---|---|---|
| A user has two Internet Explorer sessions, each on a different server, and they visit different sites in each session. | Cookies from each site are added to the appropriate server. | Cookies from each site are added to the appropriate server. |
| User logs off from the first session or in the middle of a session (if the active write back feature is configured) | Cookies from the second session must replace those cookies from the first session. | |
| First and second sessions are merged and the references to the cookies in Index.dat become out of date | Further browsing in new sessions results in repeated merging and a bloated cookie folder |
Mirroring the cookie folder solves the issue. In this case, the cookies are overwritten with those cookies from the last session each time the user logs off. So Index.dat stays up to date.
If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this policy is not configured here or in the .ini file, no folders are mirrored.
Accelerate folder mirroring
With both this policy and the Folders to mirror policy enabled, Profile Management stores mirrored folders on a VHDX-based virtual disk. It attaches the virtual disk during logons and detaches it during logoffs. Enabling this policy eliminates the need to copy the folders between the user store and local profiles and accelerates folder mirroring.