User Profile Management with Amazons EUC Services
User profiles contain files and settings that are unique to each user, and may need roam, especially in non-persistent environments. The blog outlines solutions based on technical and user experience requirements.
What is the structure of a User Profile?
Unsupported files and applications
Amazon AppStream 2.0 and WorkSpaces Pools Home Folders.
Amazon AppStream 2.0 Settings Persistence
Amazon WorkSpaces Pools Settings Persistence
Amazon Workspaces Personal User disks
Cloud File Services e,.g. OneDrive and Google Drive
Appdata
folder, however, some may save settings and data in a custom location requiring more advanced configurations. Custom scripting maybe required to save that data to a different location, possibly with the use of Session Scripts. For non-persistent solutions, profile management is an essential architectural consideration, and maybe as simple as a hard coded setting, or may require more advanced solutions that provide highly granular selective persistence whilst supporting applications that can be problematic.There are different types of user profiles including Roaming User Profiles, Local User Profiles, Mandatory User Profiles and Temporary User Profiles. This blog focuses on Local and Roaming user profile solutions.
c:\users\%username%
directory , however in some circumstances the location can change e.g. d:\users\%username%
directory for Amazon WorkSpaces Personal.Most users are familiar with the documents subfolder which is the default destination for applications to save data. Desktop and Pictures are the other user files directories typically managed.
NTUSer.dat
is a file at the root of the profile that contains the user registry hive. The user registry hive is a commonly used per user setting store for operating system and application settings.AppData\Local
, AppData\Roaming
and AppData\LocalLow
reside in the root of the profile. By design, AppData\Roaming
is the location for applications to save data that should roam between user sessions. Local
and locallow
are directories are for settings and data to persist locally only, however, the decision is down to the application developer and implementations vary. Per user installed applications may end up in the local or locallow directory.There are other settings with more complex locations and configurations, such as the Windows Task Bar layout, which are covered in depth elsewhere and may required a more advanced solution.
Enable and Administer Persistent Storage for WorkSpaces Pools - Amazon WorkSpaces
Use Home Folders - Amazon AppStream 2.0
AppData
and the user registry hive. Settings and data are loaded at login and out via a VHD file that is stored in an S3 bucket. Settings Persistence now supports 5GB of data allowing a greater range of applications such as MSFT teams to be supported. If 5GB is not sufficient, then an alternative solution should be considered.How Application Settings Persistence Works - Amazon AppStream 2.0
Amazon AppStream 2.0 increases application settings storage limit - AWS
AppData
and the user registry hive. Settings and data are loaded at login and out via a VHD file that is stored in an S3 bucket. Settings Persistence supports 1GB of data allowing a greater range of applications such as MSFT teams to be supported. If 1GB is not sufficient, then an alternative solution should be considered.Enabling application settings persistence - Amazon WorkSpaces
Amazon Workspaces provides a migrate functionality which moves the profile directory to a new destination, such a new operating system or a new image, whilst charges are pro-rated for the month.
Amazon WorkSpaces migrate - Best Practices for Deploying WorkSpaces
Advanced Profile Management requires an SMB storage in the same region to ensure a low latency to minimize login times. Customers typically use FSX NetApp ONTAP to store containers to ensure enough IO for peak periods.
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.