Synchronization policy settings
The Synchronization section contains policy settings for specifying which files and folders in a users profile are synchronized between the system on which the profile is installed and the user store.
Directories to synchronize
Profile Management synchronizes each user’s entire profile between the system it is installed on and the user store. It is not necessary to include subfolders of the user profile by adding them to this list.
Paths on this list must be relative to the user profile.
Example:
- Desktop\exclude\include ensures that the subfolder called include is synchronized even if the folder called Desktop\exclude is not
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 folders in the user profile are synchronized.
Files to synchronize
Profile Management synchronizes each user’s entire profile between the system it is installed on and the user store. It is not necessary to include files in the user profile by adding them to this list.
This policy can be used to include files below excluded folders. Paths on this list must be relative to the user profile. Wildcards can be used but are only allowed for file names. Wildcards cannot be nested and are applied recursively.
Examples:
- AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\Access.qat specifies a file below a folder that is excluded in the default configuration
- AppData\Local\MyApp*.cfg specifies all files with the extension .cfg in the profile folder AppData\Local\MyApp and 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 can help solve issues involving any transactional folder (also known as a referential folder). That folder contains interdependent files, where one file references others. Mirroring folders allows 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, consider how Index.dat references cookies while a user browses the Internet. If 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. When the user logs off from the first session (or in the middle of a session, if the active write back feature is configured), the cookies from the second session must replace those cookies from the first session. However, instead they 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 by overwriting the cookies 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.
Profile container
A profile container is a VHDX-based profile solution that lets you specify the folders to be contained in the profile disk. The profile container attaches the profile disk containing those folders, thus eliminating the need to save a copy of the folders to the local profile. Doing so decreases logon times.
To use a profile container, enable this policy and add the relative paths of the folders to the list. We recommend that you include the folders containing large cache files to the list. For example, add the Citrix Files content cache folder to the list: AppData\Local\Citrix\Citrix Files\PartCache.
There are two scenarios to be aware of:
- Profile container does not support simultaneous access by multiple sessions.
- Profile container does not support containing the entire profile.
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, it is disabled.