Profile Management

Test Profile Management with a local GPO

We recommend you set up a test environment before deploying Profile Management in a production environment. A fully supported and easier means of transferring settings to the domain Group Policy Objects (GPOs) is based on a local installation on a machine.

The general workflow is as follows:

  1. Install Profile Management on a machine.

  2. Based on your answers to questions listed in Decide a configuration, configure Profile Management policies with a local GPO.

  3. Enable Profile Management.

  4. Test logon and logoff behaviors.

  5. Adjust the local GPO settings until you receive satisfactory results.

Overview

You can test Profile Management safely using a local GPO if the machine is a member of a production OU. Local GPO policies take effect when OU and domain ones are not available. When using a local GPO, make sure no Profile Management GPOs are used elsewhere (for example, in the domain or sites).

If you can’t configure group policies using domain GPOs, you can use local GPOs as a long-term solution. However, this way introduces complexities into the environment, such as:

  • Each machine must have the Profile Management ADMX files installed.
  • Domain users possibly can’t maintain settings when accessing multiple machines.

Important:

We do not recommend using local GPOs as a long-term, enterprise solution.

Test the user experience

When implementing a profile solution, you must minimize the user experience differences when users access resources from various machines.

Users’ registry and files might vary depending on the physical machine, profile configuration, and operating system. Thus, you must configure Profile Management to address the differences between system installations on machines where the users roam.

To do so, check user access to resources in ways that mimic your production environment. These resources might include:

  • A machine with locally installed applications
  • A virtual desktop including streamed or locally installed applications
  • A virtual app, either published on or streamed from a virtual apps server
  • A Terminal Services client

Test operating system variations

Users might access applications from different operating systems. The variation between them might create conflicting settings within a single user profile.

For more information, see Profile versions.

Test Profile Management with a local GPO