Manage User Profile Location on User-decoupled Amazon WorkSpaces Core
A quick guide on how to ensure you are using the allocated user storage volumes on all of your Amazon WorkSpaces Core instances.
Justin Grego
Amazon Employee
Published Mar 28, 2025
By default, when an Amazon WorkSpace is created, you assign a user at the time of deployment. As a result, the user's profile is automatically stored on the secondary D:\ on the machine. This setup enables Amazon WorkSpaces to take independent snapshots of both the system and user volumes, allowing for system recovery or seamless migration to a new WorkSpace while preserving the user’s profile.
With Amazon WorkSpaces Core, WorkSpaces can be created without being assigned to a specific user within the WorkSpaces console, also known as user-decoupled WorkSpaces. This feature supports third-party VDI solution partners in pre-provisioning pools of WorkSpaces and brokering multiple users to a single server based WorkSpace. However, users that connect to an unassigned WorkSpaces do not automatically have their profiles placed on the user volume. Having the profile on the root C:\ volume prevents profile restoration after system recovery and leads to unused provisioned storage. Additionally, for customers with a mix of assigned and user-decoupled WorkSpaces, having a consistent profile location is key to simplified policies and management.
To ensure user profiles are redirected to the user volume, preserving independent snapshots and optimizing disk usage, set the appropriate registry key before the user logs in for the first time—ideally at system startup.
Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
Registry value:
Name: ProfilesDirectory Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ Data: D:\Users
It is essential to set this key before a user logs in. Once a profile is created, relocating it requires additional steps. To ensure the key is set in advance, you can use OS-native tools like a Computer Startup Script or Group Policy Preferences.
Additionally, many third-party VDI partners offer settings management tools within their product suites, such as Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM) and Omnissa Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM).
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