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Profile Management
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Stream user profiles

January 11, 2021
Contributed by: 
B C

With the Citrix streamed user profiles feature, files and folders contained in a profile are fetched from the user store to the local computer only when they are accessed by users after they have logged on. Registry entries and any files in the pending area are exceptions. They are fetched immediately. For more information on the pending area, see Pending area in Profile Management architecture.

Streaming is not required and does not support the Personal vDisk feature of Citrix Virtual Desktops.

  1. Under Profile Management, double-click Streamed user profiles.
  2. Double-click Profile streaming.
  3. Select Enabled and click OK.
  4. Optionally, to enhance the streaming experience for users, double-click Always cache, select Enabled, and do one of the following:
    • To save network bandwidth by imposing a lower limit on the size of files or folders that are streamed, set a limit in MB. Any files and folders that exceed the limit are fetched as soon as possible after logon.
    • To turn on the cache entire profile feature, set the limit to zero. After logon, this fetches all files in the user store as a background system task, without any feedback to users. If large files are present, the Always cache policy can improve performance by reducing logon times.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Optionally, double-click Timeout for pending area lock files, select Enabled, and enter a timeout period (days) that frees up files so they are written back to the user store from the pending area if the user store remains locked when a server becomes unresponsive. Use this setting to prevent bloat in the pending area and to ensure that the user store always contains the most up-to-date files.
  7. Click OK.
  8. Optionally, if you want only a subset of user profiles in the OU to be streamed, double-click Streamed user profile groups, select Enabled, and enter a list of groups. Use Enter to separate multiple entries. The profiles of users in all other groups are not streamed.
  9. Click OK.

If the Profile streaming setting is not configured in the policy or in the .ini file, Profile Streaming is disabled.

If the Always cache setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this setting is not configured here or in the .ini file, it is disabled.

If Timeout for pending area lock files is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this setting is not configured here or in the .ini file, the default value of one day is used.

If the Streamed user profile groups setting is disabled, all user groups are processed. If this setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this setting is not configured here or in the .ini file, all users are processed.

For your changes to take effect, run the gpupdate /force command from the command prompt as documented at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/gpupdate.

To enable profile streaming exclusion

When profile streaming exclusion is enabled, Profile Management does not stream folders in the exclusion list, and all folders and files are fetched immediately from the user store to the local computer when a user logs on.

To enable profile streaming exclusion, do the following:

  1. Under Profile Management, double-click Streamed user profiles.
  2. Double-click the Profile Streaming Exclusion list - directories policy.
  3. Select Enabled.
  4. Click Show.
  5. Add folders that you do not want Profile Management to stream. The folder names can be specified as absolute paths or as paths relative to the user profile (%USERPROFILE%). Use that variable to locate the profile but do not enter the variable itself in this policy. Omit initial backslashes from paths.

For example:

  • Desktop. The Desktop folder is not processed in the user profile.
  • MyApp\tmp. The %USERPROFILE%\MyApp\tmp folder is not processed.

If this setting is not configured here, the following folders in the .ini file are excluded by default:

  • AppData\Local\Microsoft\Credentials
  • Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Credentials
  • Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Crypto
  • Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Protect
  • Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\SystemCertificates

If this setting is not configured here or in the .ini file, all folders are streamed.

For your changes to take effect, run the gpupdate /force command. For more information, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/gpupdate.

Note:

  • This policy only takes effect when Profile Streaming is enabled.
  • The policy does not support wildcards * and ?.
  • Use Enter to separate multiple entries.
  • When manually editing the profile streaming exclusion list, you must add the preceding default excluded folders to avoid logons hanging.
Stream user profiles
January 11, 2021
Contributed by: 
B C
January 11, 2021
Contributed by: 
B C

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