Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Advanced policy settings

Number of retries when accessing locked files

Sets the number of retries when accessing locked files.

If this policy is disabled, the default value of five retries is used. 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, the default value is used.

Some deployments leave extra Internet cookies that Index.dat does not reference. The extra cookies left in the file system after sustained browsing can lead to profile bloat. This policy lets you enable Profile Management to force processing of Index.dat and remove the extra cookies. The policy increases logoff times, so enable it only after you experience this issue.

If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this policy is configured neither here nor in the .ini file, no processing of Index.dat takes place.

Disable automatic configuration

Profile Management examines any Citrix Virtual Desktops environment, for example for the presence of personal vDisks, and configures Group Policy accordingly. Only Profile Management policies in the Not Configured state are adjusted, so any customizations you have made are preserved.

This policy lets you speed up deployment and simplifies optimization. You do not need to configure this policy. However, you can disable automatic configuration when doing one of the following:

  • Upgrading to retain settings from earlier versions
  • Troubleshooting

You can regard automatic configuration as a dynamic configuration checker that automatically configures the default policy settings according to environments at runtime. It eliminates the need to configure the settings manually. Runtime environments include:

  • Windows OS
  • Windows OS versions
  • Presence of Citrix Virtual Desktops
  • Presence of personal vDisks

Automatic configuration might change the following policies if the environment changes:

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

See the following table for the default status of the policies on different OSs:

  Multi-session OS Single-session OS
Active write back Enabled Disabled if Personal vDisk is in use; otherwise, enabled.
Always cache Disabled Disabled if Personal vDisk is in use; otherwise, enabled.
Delete locally cached profiles on logoff Enabled Disabled if one of the following situations occurs: Personal vDisk is in use, Citrix Virtual Desktops is assigned, or Citrix Virtual Desktops is not installed; otherwise, enabled.
Delay before deleting cached profiles 0 seconds 60 seconds if user changes are not persistent; otherwise, 0 seconds.
Profile streaming Enabled Disabled if Personal vDisk is in use; otherwise, enabled.

However, with automatic configuration disabled, all policies above default to Disabled.

Important:

Personal vDisk is deprecated. For details, see Remove PVD, AppDisks, and unsupported hosts.

Starting with Profile Management 1909, you can have an improved experience with the Start menu on Windows 10 (version 1607 and later) and Windows Server 2016 and later. This improvement is achieved through automatic configuration of the following policies:

  • Add Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Caches and Appdata\Local\Packages to Folders to Mirror.
  • Add Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.Dat* to Files to synchronize.

If this setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.

If this setting is neither configured here nor in the .ini file, automatic configuration is turned on. In this case, Profile Management settings might change if the environment changes.

Log off user if a problem is encountered

Lets you specify whether Profile Management logs off users if a problem is encountered.

If this policy is disabled or not configured, Profile Management gives a temporary profile to users if a problem is encountered. For example, the user store is unavailable.

If it is enabled, an error message is displayed and users are logged off. This setup can simplify troubleshooting of the problem.

If this setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.

If this setting is neither configured here nor in the .ini file, a temporary profile is provided.

Customer Experience Improvement Program

By default, the Customer Experience Improvement Program is enabled to help improve the quality and performance of Citrix products by collecting anonymous statistics and usage data.

If this setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.

Enable search index roaming for Outlook

Allow user-based Outlook search experience by automatically roaming Outlook search data along with user profile. This feature requires extra spaces in the user store to store search indexes for Outlook.

Log off and then log on again for this policy to take effect.

Outlook search index database – backup and restore

Lets you specify what Profile Management does during logon when the Enable search index roaming for Outlook policy is enabled.

If this policy is enabled, Profile Management backs up the search index database each time the database is mounted successfully on logon. Profile Management treats the backup as the good copy of the search index database. When an attempt to mount the search index database fails due to database corruption, Profile Management reverts the search index database to the last-known good copy.

Note:

Profile Management deletes the previously saved backup after a new backup is saved successfully. The backup consumes the available VHDX storage.

Enable concurrent session support for Outlook search data roaming

Lets Profile Management provide native Outlook search experience in concurrent sessions of the same user. Use this policy with the Search index roaming for Outlook policy.

With this policy enabled, each concurrent session uses a separate Outlook OST file.

By default, only two VHDX disks can be used to store Outlook OST files (one file per disk). If the user starts more sessions, their Outlook OST files are stored in the local user profile. You can specify the maximum number of VHDX disks for storing Outlook OST files.

Enable OneDrive container

Lets OneDrive folders roam with users.

The OneDrive container is a VHDX-based folder roaming solution. Profile Management creates a VHDX file per user on a file share and stores the users’ OneDrive folders into the VHDX files. The VHDX files are attached when users log on and detached when users log off.

UWP app roaming

Lets you enable UWP (Universal Windows Platform) apps to roam with users. As a result, users can access the same UWP apps from different devices.

With this policy enabled, Profile Management lets UWP apps roam with users by storing the apps on separate VHDX disks. Those disks are attached during user logons and detached during user logoffs.

Configuration precedence:

If this setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this setting is configured neither here nor in the .ini file, this feature is disabled.

Enable asynchronous processing for user Group Policy on logon

Windows provides two processing modes for user Group Policy: synchronous and asynchronous. Windows uses a registry value to determine the processing mode for the next user logon. If the registry value doesn’t exist, synchronous mode is applied. The registry value is a machine-level setting and doesn’t roam with users. Thus, asynchronous mode will not be applied as expected if users:

  • Log on to different machines.
  • Log on to the same machine where the Delete locally cached profiles on logoff policy is enabled.

With this policy enabled, the registry value roams with users. As a result, processing mode is applied each time users log on.

Free space ratio to trigger VHD disk compaction

Applicable when Enable VHD disk compaction is enabled. Lets you specify the free space ratio to trigger VHD disk compaction. When the free space ratio exceeds the specified value on user logoff, disk compaction is triggered.

Free space ratio = (current VHD file size – required minimum VHD file size*) ÷ current VHD file size

* Obtained using the GetSupportedSize method of the MSFT_Partition class from the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Number of logoffs to trigger VHD disk compaction

Applicable when Enable VHD disk compaction is enabled. Lets you specify the number of user logoffs to trigger VHD disk compaction.

When the number of logoffs since the last compaction reaches the specified value, disk compaction is triggered again.

Disable defragmentation for VHD disk compaction

Applicable when Enable VHD disk compaction is enabled. Lets you specify whether to disable file defragmentation for VHD disk compaction.

When VHD disk compaction is enabled, the VHD disk file is first automatically defragmented using the Windows built-in defrag tool, and then compacted. VHD disk defragmentation produces better compaction results while disabling it can save system resources.

Enable multi-session write-back for profile containers

Enables write-back for profile containers in multi-session scenarios. If enabled, changes in all sessions are written back to profile containers. Otherwise, only changes in the first session are saved because only the first session is in read/write mode in profile containers. Citrix Profile Management profile containers are supported starting with Citrix Profile Management 2103. FSLogix Profile Container is supported starting with Citrix Profile Management 2003.

To use this policy for the FSLogix Profile Container, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:

  • The FSLogix Profile Container feature is installed and enabled.
  • The profile type is set to Try for read-write profile and fallback to read-only in FSLogix.

Replicate user stores

Lets you replicate the remote user profile store to multiple paths on each logon and logoff. Doing so lets Profile Management provide profile redundancy for user logons.

Enabling the policy increases system I/O and might prolong logoffs.

Note:

  • This feature is available for both the user store and the full profile container.
  • Replicated profile containers provide profile redundancy for user logons but not for in-session failover.

Enable credential-based access to user stores

By default, Citrix Profile Management impersonates the current user to access the user store. Enable this feature if you do not want Profile Management to impersonate the current user when accessing the user store. You can put user stores in storage repositories (for example, Azure Files) that the current user has no permission to access.

To ensure that Profile Management can access user stores, save the profile storage server’s credentials in Workspace Environment Management (WEM) or Windows Credential Manager. We recommend you use Workspace Environment Management to eliminate the need of configuring the same credentials for each machine where Profile Management runs. If you use the Windows Credential Manager, use the Local System account to securely save the credentials.

Note:

This policy is available both for file-based and VHDX-based user stores. For Profile Management versions earlier than 2212, this policy is available only for VHDX-based user stores.

If this setting is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used. If this setting is configured neither here nor in the .ini file, it is disabled by default.

Customize storage path for VHDX files

Profile Management provides the following VHDX-based policies: Profile container, Search index roaming for Outlook, and Accelerate folder mirroring. By default, VHDX files are stored in the user store. This policy lets you specify a separate path to store them.

Default capacity of VHD containers

Lets you specify the default storage capacity (in GB) of VHD containers.

Configuration precedence:

  1. If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.
  2. If this policy is not configured either here or in the .ini file, the default is 50 (GB).

Automatically reattach VHDX disks in sessions

With this policy enabled, Profile Management ensures a high level of stability of VHDX-based policies. By default, this policy is enabled.

When this policy is enabled, Profile Management monitors VHDX disks that are in use by VHDX-based policies. If any of the disks is detached, Profile Management reattaches the disk automatically.

Profile container auto-expansion threshold

Lets you specify the utilization percentage of storage capacity at which profile containers trigger auto-expansion.

Configuration precedence:

  • 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, the default is 90 (%) of storage capacity.

Profile container auto-expansion increment

Lets you specify the amount of storage capacity (in GB) by which profile containers automatically expand when auto-expansion is triggered.

Configuration precedence:

  • If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.
  • If this policy is not configured either here or in the .ini file, the default is 10 (GB).

Profile container auto-expansion limit

Lets you specify the maximum storage capacity (in GB) to which profile containers can automatically expand when auto-expansion is triggered.

Configuration precedence:

  • If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.
  • If this policy is not configured either here or in the .ini file, the default is 80 (GB).

Enable user-level policy settings

With this policy enabled, machine-level policy settings can work at the user level, and user-level settings override machine-level settings.

Configuration precedence:

  1. If this policy is not configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.
  2. If this policy is configured neither here nor in the .ini file, it is disabled.

Set priority order for user groups

Lets you specify the priority order for user groups. The order determines which group takes precedence when a user belongs to multiple groups with different policy settings.

When a user belongs to multiple groups with conflicting policy settings, consider the following:

  • If the user belongs to one or more groups defined in this policy, the group with the highest priority takes precedence.

  • If the user doesn’t belong to any of the groups defined in this policy, the group with the SID listed earliest in alphabetical order takes precedence.

User store selection method

Lets you specify the user store selection method when multiple user stores are available. Options include:

  • Configuration order. Profile Management selects the earliest configured store.
  • Access performance. Profile Management selects the store with the best access performance.

Configuration precedence:

  1. If this setting isn’t configured here, the value from the .ini file is used.
  2. If this setting isn’t configured here or in the .ini file, Configuration order is used.