Profile Management

Configure offline profiles

Citrix offline profiles are intended for laptop users or mobile-device users who roam with intermittent access to a network. This feature allows profiles to synchronize with the user store at the earliest possible opportunity. When a network disconnection occurs, profiles remain intact on the laptop or device even after restarting or hibernating. As mobile users work, their profiles are updated locally and are eventually synchronized with the user store when the network connection is re-established.

This feature works only with domain-joined computers (including ones running Citrix XenClient). It is not intended for use with servers or desktop computers, whose network connections tend to be permanent.

Typically, you don’t enable both offline profiles and streamed user profiles. For this reason, offline profiles take over precedence and disable streamed user profiles and the Delete locally cached profiles on logoff setting. Ensure that users always have a complete profile on their laptop or mobile device when they first log on.

You can configure offline profiles in these ways:

  • Using Group Policy. This policy gives you centralized administrative control of the feature but you must create a separate OU containing the laptops or devices that use offline profiles.</span>
  • Using the .ini file. It is an easier option if you prefer not to create a special OU just for laptops and mobile devices. But it effectively hands control of this feature to individual device owners. This option requires a once-only configuration of each laptop or mobile device.</span>

If Offline profile support is not configured using Group Policy, the value from the .ini file is used. If this setting is not configured in Group Policy or in the .ini file, offline profiles are disabled.

Using Group Policy

  1. Create an OU containing all computers managed by Profile Management. Include the laptops and mobile devices that use offline profiles, your Citrix virtual apps servers, and your virtual desktops.
  2. Create a child OU containing only the laptops and mobile devices.
  3. In Group Policy Management, create a baseline Group Policy Object (GPO) that enforces your site-wide policies, and link it to both OUs.
  4. Configure the baseline GPO with the Profile Management settings common to all computers.
  5. Create a second, offline GPO and link it to the child OU.
  6. Configure the offline GPO as follows:
    1. Under Profile Management, double-click Offline profile support.
    2. Select Enabled and click OK.
    3. Configure any other settings that you want to apply only to laptops and mobile devices.

For your changes to take effect, run the gpupdate /force command from the command prompt as documented at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/gpupdate.

Using the .ini file

As a prerequisite, ensure that Offline profile support is unconfigured (the default) in both the baseline and offline GPO. If these settings are configured, the .ini file setting is overridden.

  1. On each laptop or mobile device, locate the .ini file created by the Profile Management installer. To locate the .ini file, see Files included in the download.

  2. Uncomment this line (by removing the semi-colon from it):

    pre codeblock ;OfflineSupport= <!--NeedCopy-->

  3. Save the .ini file.

    For your changes to take effect, run the gpupdate /force command from the command prompt as documented at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/gpupdate.

Configure offline profiles