ProfileDisk: Full User Profile Delivery Employing Virtual Disks

Another powerful feature included in ProfileUnity is ProfileDisk. Very simply, ProfileDisk allows a user’s entire Windows user profile to be contained on a virtual disk that can be attached and detached to a desktop as needed. The ProfileDisk stores 100% of all file system and registry changes in the user profile path so that all user settings and data are preserved on both persistent and non-persistent desktops. You will not have to spend time deciding which parts of the user’s profile should be saved and made portable across your environment to reduce profile sizes. And because the user profile is available after mounting the drive at login rather than waiting for it to be streamed across the network, large profiles load much faster for your users.

As a user environment management solution, ProfileUnity has always delivered universally compatible user profiles across multiple Windows sessions. When a user logs on to a Windows session, their personal user profile settings are instantly pulled across the network in seconds. Customized settings such as application level customization, user-created spell checker data, Outlook signatures, desktop wallpaper, and much more are instantly made available for the user regardless of whether the machine is a VMware Horizon, Citrix XenDesktop, thin client, or traditional Windows desktop.

However, the large amount of data stored in a user’s profile tends to grow and not all of this data is necessary for a robust and complete user experience. As a result, ProfileUnity gives administrators granular control to set rules and choose what parts of the profile data to preserve and make portable with Portability Management and Settings. Reducing the user profile to contain only the essential settings and data speeds up logon times, reduces profile corruption instances, and eliminates the needless transfer of large amounts of data over the network.

Out-of-the-box, ProfileUnity comes with templates that cover 85% of the user profile and typical application and Windows settings. What about the rest of the settings? Administrators would have to create portability rules for any essential settings and applications that are not typically captured by ProfileUnity.

What if user login times are growing even while using Portability Management and Settings? Administrators are faced with either cutting more data from the profile to reduce streaming data over the network or telling their users to expect long logins.

In some cases, organizations want to provide users with their full user profile settings and data to give them a persistent desktop in a non-persistent environment. But again, user experience satisfaction decreases as the transfer of a large user profile causes delays at login.

ProfileUnity’s ProfileDisk solves these issues. A ProfileDisk contains a user’s entire profile on either a VHDX or VMDK virtual disk. When the user logs in, that ProfileDisk is attached to their session. When the user logs out, the ProfileDisk is detached. This feature acts as an “easy button” or “catch all” for user profiles so that no settings are missed or forgotten. With the disk attached for the duration of the session, there is no need for the settings and data to be streamed across the network at login, resulting in support for full persistence without compromising user experience.

Using a VMDK ProfileDisk with the new FlexDisk technology, the ProfileDisk can be attached to any View VDI desktop on the fly and detached at logoff on either a persistent or non-persistent desktop. This avoids the need to restore the profile at login and adds only about 5 seconds of login time for Virtual Center to hot-add the VMDK upon our request. This technology is also created in a way that preserves the native Windows format of the user profile.

Similarly, the same technique is used to attach a VHDX ProfileDisk. The login process is held up for about 2 seconds to mount the VHDX and then let Windows run. This technology supports Windows 10 and 11 and Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, and 2022 and the following desktop delivery types:

  • VMware Horizon VDI
  • Citrix VDI, MCS and PVS
  • Amazon Workspaces
  • Physical desktops
  • Multi-user operating systems like Microsoft RDS, Citrix XenApp and VMware Horizon RDSH

While it might seem that employing ProfileDisk to capture the whole user profile would eliminate the need for or use of Portability rules, ProfileUnity’s Portability Management can still be used in conjunction with ProfileDisk. Portability Management can help bridge the gap by capturing user profile settings from non-conforming applications that are not being saved in the standard local user folder or user’s registry hive. Portability Management can also be used to help support multiple desktop sessions or multiple application sessions. When it comes to disaster recovery and using VMDKs for your users’ profiles, Portability Management can be configured to save out the profile from the ProfileDisk VMDK to a CIFS share. Backing up and replicating a CIFS share might be easier than backing up and replicating a VMDK on a VMFS volume. Thus, Portability Management is still an administrator’s powerful ally in customizing user profile management for their specific environment.

Configuring a VHDX ProfileDisk

VHDX ProfileDisks can be set up in two ways. The first method is to create a new Configuration using the Guided Configuration Wizard by selecting a “VHDX ProfileDisk” template from the template library. One of the wizard’s steps will allow you to configure VHDX ProfileDisks similar to the instructions below. The second method is to configure VHDX ProfileDisks on the Administration screen using the instructions below.

User Group Management is available for VHDX ProfileDisks. Different VHDX ProfileDisks can be assigned to particular Active Directory User Groups. Also, each group of users can have separate paths to their own ProfileDisk so that loads can be balanced among different file shares.

To use a VHDX ProfileDisk to hold user profiles, complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to the ProfileUnity Management Console.
  2. Hover over your username in the top right corner of the screen.
  3. In the drop-down menu that appears, click the Administration option.
  4. The Administration screen opens with the Settings tab displayed.
  5. Scroll down to the Client Settings section.
  6. Add a new ProfileDisk and User Group assignment by clicking on the Add ProfileDisk Group button. Or edit an existing ProfileDisk assignment from the list below.
  7. Configure your ProfileDisk settings:
    1. Enter the Active Directory Groups that will be assigned to this VHDX ProfileDisk by typing the first few letters of the group and then selecting the correct group. Multiple groups can be selected. If this field is left blank, then the ProfileDisk is assigned to all ProfileUnity users.
    2. Choose whether to enable Multi-session ProfileDisk support. Checking this option allows a user to log in to multiple sessions at the same time and have the same experience across sessions. Only VHDX ProfileDisks are supported for Multi-session ProfileDisk.
    3. Enter the Virtual Disk Path where the VHDX will be located.
    4. Enter the VHDX’s maximum Size in GB.
    5. Select whether this disk is Expandable or Fixed under Disk Type.
  8. Click the Save Assignments button.
  9. Choose VHDX ProfileDisk for the Fabric Communication Type to Broker Messages.
  10. Enter the Deployment Path where the ProfileDisk configuration for all disks will be stored on your NETLOGON share.
  11. Click the Update button in the top right corner of the screen.
  12. Click the Download or Deploy Client Settings button to send a copy of the client configuration file to the specified location.
  13. On the screen that pops up, select the Platform for deployment.
    • If you choose the Domain or Cloud option, this places the client configuration file in the directory you specified for the Deployment Path.
    • If you are not logged in as an Active Directory user, choose the Download option. This allows you to place the client configuration file, clientsettings.xml, in the Deployment Path manually.
  14. Scroll down to the ProfileUnity Tools section and click Download or Deploy Client Tools to copy the ProfileUnity Client files to the specified location.
  15. On the screen that pops up, select the Platform for deployment.
    • If you choose the Domain or Cloud option, this will place the client configuration file in the directory you specified for the Deployment Path.
    • If you are not logged in as an Active Directory user, choose the Download option. This will allow you to manually place the Client Tools in the NETLOGON share on your domain controller.
  16. Click the Configuration Management option in the left column.
  17. In order for ProfileDisk to work, you must have at least one ProfileUnity Configuration File (INI) downloaded or deployed to your Deployment Path. To configure ProfileDisk without other configuration settings, create a blank configuration file in the Configuration Wizard by choosing a “Manual” configuration with no other settings in it.
  18. Reboot all user desktops. If Microsoft® .NET Framework 4.6.2 is not installed in the base operating system on a particular desktop, it will be installed after the desktop restarts. The installation of .NET 4.6.2 will increase the time it takes before the desktop is available again.

Configuring a VMDK ProfileDisk

When installing the ProfileUnity Management Console, you were asked to pick a broker for the integration of the FlexDisk VMDK distribution technology. FlexDisk governs the operation of the VMDK ProfileDisk whether you use Citrix, VMware, Microsoft WVD, or Other as your broker.

To use a VMDK ProfileDisk to hold user profiles, complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to the ProfileUnity Management Console.
  2. Hover over your username in the top right corner of the screen.
  3. In the drop-down menu that appears, click the Administration option.

  4. Note: If you selected VMware as your broker, you must set up the FlexDisk service if you have not already done so. Follow the directions provided earlier in the Setting Up ProfileUnity Clustering for FlexDisk section.

  5. The Administration screen opens with the Settings tab displayed.
  6. Scroll down to the Client Settings section.
  7. In the Communication Type to Broker Messages field, select FlexDisk VMDK ProfileDisk And FlexApp.
  8. In the Deployment Path field, enter your NETLOGON path.
  9. Click the Update button in the top right corner of the screen.
  10. Click the Download or Deploy Client Settings button.
  11. On the screen that pops up, select the Platform for deployment.
    • If you choose the Domain or Cloud option, this will place the client configuration file in the directory you specified for the Deployment Path.
    • If you choose the Download option, the client configuration file will be downloaded through your browser.
  12. Scroll down to the ProfileUnity Tools section.
  13. Click Download or Deploy Client Tools to copy the ProfileUnity Client files to the specified location.
  14. On the screen that pops up, select the Platform for deployment.
    • If you choose the Domain or Cloud option, this will place the client configuration file in the directory you specified for the Deployment Path.
    • If you are not logged in as an Active Directory user, choose the Download option. This will allow you to manually place the Client Tools in the NETLOGON share on your domain controller.
  15. Click the Configuration Management option in the left column.
  16. In order for ProfileDisk to work, you must have at least one ProfileUnity Configuration File (INI) downloaded or deployed to your Deployment Path. To configure ProfileDisk without other configuration settings, create a blank configuration file in the Configuration Wizard by choosing a Manual configuration with no other settings in it.
  17. Reboot or refresh all user desktops. If Microsoft® .NET Framework 4.6.2 is not installed in the base operating system on a particular desktop, ProfileUnity will install it after the desktop restarts. The installation of .NET 4.6.2 will increase the time it takes before the desktop is available again.
  18. In the ProfileUnity Management Console, click the FlexDisk Management option in the left column.
  19. Click the User Data Disk tab in the top right corner of the screen.
  20. Click the Create button to provision a user data disk.
  21. On the New User Data Disk Setting screen, pick your Datastore.
  22. Check Create New Disk for ProfileDisk Use.
  23. Change the Size in GB if needed.
  24. Click Save.
  25. After the Task Manager list shows the disk creation has been successful, refresh the User Data Disk list if necessary.
  26. With the user data disk just created, click the (Assignments) icon to create an assignment for users or groups.
  27. Select your user or group. Pools will automatically populate if you have VMware Horizon and have installed the Connection Service Monitor. Click Add Assignment to add it to the list of current assignments.
  28. When done, click the X button.
  29. With the VMDK ProfileDisk configuration complete, the user or group should be able to log in.