Profile Management

Use automatic configuration

Automatic configuration helps you simplify Profile Management deployments. It automatically applies the recommended policy settings based on your Citrix environment, reducing manual configuration and improving performance.

How it works

Profile Management evaluates your environment at runtime and adjusts policy settings accordingly. It checks factors such as:

  • Windows OS versions
  • Presence of Citrix Virtual Desktops and personal vDisks
  • Installed applications
  • Existing Citrix Profile Management (CPM) policy settings

Automatic configuration adjusts policies in two ways:

  • Policies where your customizations are preserved
  • Policies where your customizations might be overridden

Policies where your customizations are preserved

Profile Management adjusts the following policies only when they’re set to Not Configured. Your custom settings are not changed.

  • Active write-back
  • Always cache
  • Delete locally cached profiles on logoff
  • Delay before deleting cached profiles
  • Profile streaming

Policies where your customizations might be overridden

Profile Management might adjust the following policies to ensure compatibility with features such as Start menu roaming:

  • Folders to mirror
  • Exclusion list - directories, Exclusion list - files
  • Directories to synchronize, Files to synchronize
  • Folders to exclude from profile container

Table: Adjustments made by automatic configuration

Condition Feature Support Configuration Changes
File-based profile solution or Container-based profile solution with Local caching for profile container enabled
Start menu roaming. For more information, see Best practices for start menu roaming. Disabling automatic configuration might cause issues with the Start menu.
  • Add AppData\Local\Packages, AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Caches to Folders to mirror and Directories to synchronize. Remove these paths from Exclusion list - directories.
  • Add AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.Dat* to Files to synchronize. Remove this path from Exclusion list - files.
Container-based profile solution without Local caching for profile container enabled Workaround for the issue that AutoCAD cannot be opened when the entire profile container is enabled Add AppData\Local\Temp, AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2025, and AppData\Local\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2025 to Folders to exclude from profile container.
OneDrive container enabled OneDrive SSO roaming. Disabling automatic configuration might cause issues with the OneDrive container SSO. Add AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin_cw5n1h2txyewy to Folders to mirror and Directories to synchronize. Remove this path from Exclusion list.

Manage automatic configuration

Automatic configuration is enabled by default. Disable it only when you’re troubleshooting or applying advanced customizations.

To disable automatic configuration, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Group Policy Management Editor.
  2. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Citrix Components > Profile Management > Advanced settings.
  3. Open Disable automatic configuration.
  4. Select Enabled.
  5. Select OK to save the change.
  6. Run gpupdate /force on the affected machine.
  7. Log off and log back on for the change to take effect.

Troubleshooting

If you need to troubleshoot issues related to automatic configuration or to troubleshoot Profile Management issues, disable automatic configuration and manually configure the required settings.

  1. Disable automatic configuration using the steps in Manage automatic configuration.
  2. Update policy settings based on the guidance in the preceding table.
  3. Run gpupdate /force on affected machines.
  4. Have users log off and back on to apply changes.
Use automatic configuration