User Profile Disks
Preserving the user state is important in both session
virtualization and VDI environments. Users who have worked in
traditional PC environments are used to being able to personalize their
desktop environment and applications by configuring settings such as
desktop backgrounds, desktop shortcuts, application settings, and other
customizations. When these same users encounter session virtualization or VDI environments, they expect the same personalization capabilities that traditional PCs provide.
In previous versions of Windows Server, preserving user state
information for sessions and virtual desktops required using Windows
roaming technologies like RUPs and FR. This approach had certain
limitations, however. For one thing, implementing RUP and FR adds more
complexity to deploying RDS for session virtualization or VDI. And for
VDI deployments in particular, RUP/FR restricted the solution to using
personal virtual desktops because pooled virtual desktops did not
support preserving user state with RUP/FR.
Other problems could arise when using RUP/FR with RDS in previous
versions of Windows Server. For example, if the user’s RUP was
accidentally used outside the RDS environment, data could be lost,
making the profile unusable. RUP/FR could also increase the time it
takes for a user to log on to a session or virtual desktop. Finally,
applications that were poorly designed and didn’t write user data and
settings to the proper location might not function as expected when
RUP/FR was used as a roaming solution.
Windows Server 2012 solves these problems with the introduction of User
Profile Disks, which store user data and settings for sessions and
virtual desktops in a separate VHD file that can be stored on a network
share.
Configuring User Profile Disks
Configuring a user profile disk for a virtual desktop collection is
done when you create the collection. Before you do this however, you
need to create a server message block (SMB) file share where your user
profile disk will be stored on the network and configure permissions on
the file share so the computer account of your host has at least write
access.
Begin by starting the Create Collection wizard by clicking Create Virtual Desktop Collections on the Overview page of the Remote Desktop Services section of Server Manager . Then on the Specify User Profile Disks page of the Create Collection wizard, make sure Enable User Profile Disks is selected and type the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path to the file share where you’ll store your user profile disks on the network:
Once your new collection has been created, you can further configure
your user profile disk settings by selecting the collection on the
Collections page of the Remote Desktop Services section of Server
Manager, clicking the Tasks control in the Properties area, and
clicking Edit Properties:
On the Virtual Desktop Collection page of the properties of your collection, you can customize how your user profile disk will be used. By default, all user profile data and settings are stored on the user
profile disk, but you can configure these settings by selecting folders
that should be excluded from being stored on your user profile disk.
Alternatively, you can configure which specific types of items should
be stored on your user profile disk; for example, only the user’s
Documents folder and user registry data:
