Include and exclude items for the file-based profile solution
Note:
This article focuses on the file-based profile solution. For more information about the equivalent policies for the container-based profile solution, see Set up profile containers.
This article describes the process that Profile Management uses to include and exclude items from users’ profiles for the file-based profile solution. Ensure that you understand this process if you decide to modify the default inclusion or exclusion lists to improve the logon and logoff experience of your users. To help you determine whether this modification is required, see that Which applications are in use](/en-us/profile-management/current-release/plan/applications-to-profile.html).
For example, you might include Microsoft Word because it is a highly customizable and frequently used application that must present the same experience to roaming users however it is accessed. Conversely, you might exclude an enterprise application because it is infrequently used by some groups so its profile data does not need to be downloaded at each logon and logoff.
By default, all files and folders in local profiles are synchronized with the user store. You can specify files and folders that you do not want to synchronize by adding them to an exclusion list. If you exclude a folder, you can specify its subfolders that you do want to synchronize by adding them to an inclusion list.
You can include and exclude:
- Files and folders contained inside profiles.
- Registry entries in the HKCU hive that store personalization settings. Entries in the HKLM hive are not processed by default and cannot be configured to do so.
Note:
Starting with Profile Management version 2407, Registry exclusion and inclusion policies apply both to file-based and to container-based profile solutions.
Before including and excluding items
Before tuning the contents of your users’ profiles, consider using the set of built-in Windows Performance Monitoring (Perfmon) counters. These provide insights into the behavior of your profiles. Available counters include measurements of the profile size and the time taken to create a Citrix user profile on the local computer.
You might need to decide whether to cache profiles locally (on the computers that run Profile Management). Factors that affect the decision include the Citrix products in your deployment, the available space on the local computers, and the number of users in the deployment.
Files and folders
All included and excluded folder names are language specific. However, folder names in the user store are in a format independent of the operating system language.
You can synchronize files or folders on disks that are treated as local by the operating system. You cannot synchronize files or folders on network-mapped drives.
The registry
For existing users, the entire HKCU hive is copied to the user store. For new users, the hive of their Microsoft local, roaming, default, or template profile is copied. Inclusions are added and exclusions are removed from the hive when changes are made to the user store.
If you have a template profile that contains unwanted keys, use a tool such as Profile Nurse from Sepago to eliminate them from the user store.
About exclusions
Exclusions are processed at logoff not logon. They do not delete data from the user store but prevent new data from being written to it.
Other than the default exclusions, typically you do not need to exclude any items when you first roll out Profile Management. Later, as you track application performance and gather feedback from users, you might need to exclude items if settings from multiple applications clash or if a user’s NTUSER.DAT file grows large as a result of collecting unneeded settings.
Do not add redirected folders as exclusions.
Important: Citrix recommends excluding the AppData\LocalLow folder from synchronization. In the default configuration, the exclusion list already contains AppData\LocalLow. Besides, you can also choose to exclude partial content from the AppData\Local folder. If you do not exclude AppData\LocalLow or AppData\Local, a large amount of data can be transferred over the network and users can experience logon delays. The folders are not synchronized by standard Windows roaming profiles.
Inclusion and exclusion rules
The following rules are used when Profile Management includes and excludes files, folders, and registry keys:
- All items are included by default
- If the same path is configured as both an inclusion and an exclusion, the inclusion takes precedence
- An inclusion takes precedence over an exclusion in the same folder
- An inclusion takes precedence over an exclusion higher up in the folder hierarchy
- An exclusion takes precedence over an inclusion higher up in the folder hierarchy
These rules result in sensible and intuitive behavior. All items are included by default. From that starting point, you can configure top-level exceptions as exclusions, then configure deeper exceptions to the top-level exceptions as inclusions, and so on.