Chapter 6
Virtualizing User Profiles and Settings
IN THIS CHAPTER
- Understanding the structure of a user profile
- Making a user’s profile available on many operating system instances
- How user profile virtualization works with user data virtualization
- Remedies for problems with roaming user profiles
- Changes in profile virtualization with Windows Server 2012 and User Experience Virtualization
- Third-party user profile virtualization solutions
A user’s data and applications are only useful when they can be easily accessed. If shortcuts or application customizations are missing, productivity is greatly reduced as users struggle to find information and work with their applications. User-specific shortcuts and application settings are stored within the user’s profile, which is typically specific to the operating system instance. So if users log on to multiple computers, they would have different profiles and therefore different settings on each machine. This issue is compounded with server virtualization, whereby users may be working with different operating system instances daily. This chapter explores different methods to make the user’s profile available no matter what operating system instance or version is being used.
