ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices

Transcription

1 ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Solutions for Windows

2 Introduction This guide has been authored by experts at Liquidware Labs in order to provide information and guidance concerning using ProfileUnity to migrate users from one version of Windows to another. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording for any external use by any person or entity without the express prior written consent of Liquidware Labs. Liquidware Labs, Inc Mansell Road Suite 200 Alpharetta, Georgia U.S.A. Phone: Liquidware Labs Inc. All rights reserved. Stratusphere, ProfileUnity, FlexApp, FlexDisk, and Flex-IO are trademarks of Liquidware Labs. All other products are trademarks of their respective owners ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 1

3 Contents MIGRATING USERS FROM ONE OPERATING SYSTEM TO ANOTHER... 3 THE PROBLEM OF DIFFERENT PROFILE VERSIONS... 3 CAPTURING EXISTING USER-AUTHORED DATA AND APPLICATION SETTINGS... 3 DESIGN CRITERIA... 4 PROFILEUNITY COMPONENTS THAT WILL BE USED... 4 FILTERS... 4 FILTER EXAMPLE #1 - PHYSICAL DESKTOP FILTER... 5 FILTER EXAMPLE #2 - VIRTUAL DESKTOP FILTER... 6 PORTABILITY RULES... 7 RECOMMENDED PORTABILITY RULES... 7 OPTIONAL PORTABILITY RULES DEPENDING ON REQUIREMENTS... 7 NOT RECOMMENDED... 7 PORTABILITY RULE SETTINGS #1 SAVING FROM THE PHYSICAL DESKTOP TO A NETWORK LOCATION... 8 PORTABILITY RULE SETTINGS #2 RESTORING PHYSICAL DESKTOP SETTINGS TO THE VIRTUAL DESKTOP... 9 PORTABILITY RULE SETTINGS #3 SAVING/RESTORING VIRTUAL DESKTOP SETTINGS TO A DIFFERENT NETWORK LOCATION... 9 FOLDER REDIRECTION FOLDER REDIRECTION EXAMPLE #1 FOR PHYSICAL DESKTOPS FOLDER REDIRECTION EXAMPLE #2 FOR VIRTUAL DESKTOPS READY TO MIGRATE ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 2

4 Migrating Users from One Operating System to Another Need to upgrade your users Windows operating system? If you re a desktop administrator faced with the looming task of migrating users from one operating system (OS) to another on hundreds of desktops (physical or virtual), you need a plan that both makes the transition process easier and keeps users productive. ProfileUnity manages such user environment changes. The Problem of Different Profile Versions With the launch of Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft changed the user profile format with new folder names and storage locations, making version 1 profiles created in Windows XP/2000/and Server 2003 incompatible with version 2 profiles created in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and later operating systems. Liquidware Labs ProfileUnity automatically virtualizes user profiles and settings and syncs mission critical user authored data to network or cloud storage. From the first time that ProfileUnity runs, the solution creates universal user Windows profiles in native format that supports users' ability to transition to any modern Windows operating system including Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server User productivity is unaffected and acceptance of the new OS platform is seamless. Capturing Existing User-Authored Data and Application Settings Windows migration plans must address user authored data on legacy PCs. Relying on manual drag and drop for file transfers and disparate removable media is haphazard at best. An automated plan is best and helps to ensure that no mission critical data is left behind. ProfileUnity offers an exclusive feature in its folder redirection module. When applied, this feature automatically harvests user authored data, such as My Documents, Photos, etc., from legacy desktops. The data is synced to a new location such as a network drive or external cloud storage providers. When the background sync has successfully completed, the folders can then be redirected to the new location. While you are migrating to the new OS, you'll also likely be upgrading your applications to the latest version, including Microsoft Office and other popular third party applications. Application data settings such as Microsoft Outlook configurations, signatures, personal spell checker data, contact lists, and more, are easily lost without proper planning. Organizations often also upgrade applications during an OS migration. ProfileUnity allows administrators to choose which custom application data settings should carry over to the new desktop and which should be ignored. ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 3

5 Design Criteria Configure ProfileUnity to migrate user critical settings and files from physical or persistent desktops to a non-persistent virtual desktop environment. The settings and files on the physical or persistent desktops must not be affected by any changes to the virtual desktop. Enable users to migrate to the virtual desktop environment at any time once the file sync process has completed. Offline file synchronization must not be utilized. ProfileUnity Components That Will Be Used Filters Portability Rules Folder Redirection This guide assumes that you are preparing for a one-way operating system migration in which the new operating system will completely replace the old operating system which will be discontinued in your environment. As an alternative, are you looking to have your users work in a mixed environment that supports different profile version such as Windows XP and Windows 7 at the same time? If different profile versions need to co-exist in your environment, please see our Windows Solution Guide, Using ProfileUnity to Migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7. Filters The filters within ProfileUnity provide a means to restrict the application of settings to users and/or computers based upon different conditions. At least two filters will be required for a one-way migration. One filter for physical/persistent desktops and a second for non-persistent desktops will need to be created. There are many different ways to identify computers using filters. Some examples of filter conditions that may be used include computer OU, computer name, and file exists (virtual desktop agent file). For the purpose of this guide, the filters will be based upon the computer s Active Directory Organizational Unit (OU). On the next two pages are examples of how to setup both filters. Example 1 shows how a filter for physical computers would be configured, if the physical computers all exist in the Computers OU. Example 2 shows how a filter for virtual computers would be configured, if all of the virtual computers exist in the VDI OU. ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 4

6 Filter Example #1 - Physical Desktop Filter Name Enter Physical Desktop. Comments Optional, but can be very helpful for future reference. Use The Following Rule Aggregate To Apply Filter Rules Use OR when any one of the conditions must be met. For example, if physical desktops exist in more than one OU, you would add a condition for each OU in which physical computers exist and set the rule aggregate to Or (Any one condition must be met). Use AND when all of the conditions must be met. For example, if one wanted to apply settings only to computers in a specific OU when the user was a member of a specific AD group, you would add both conditions and set the rule aggregate to And (All conditions must be met). In this case if both conditions were not met, the filter would not apply. Condition Select OU Computer. Match Select Is Exactly. Value Enter the corresponding OU. Add the filter rule condition, match, and value triplet and repeat for each OU where the physical desktops reside. Machine Class Optional Operating Systems Optional Connection Optional ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 5

7 Filter Example #2 - Virtual Desktop Filter Name Enter Virtual Desktops. Comments Optional, but can be very helpful for future reference. Use The Following Rule Aggregate To Apply Filter Rules Use OR when any one of the conditions must be met. For example, if virtual desktops exist in more than one OU, you would add a condition for each OU in which virtual computers exist and set the rule aggregate to Or (Any one condition must be met). Use AND when all of the conditions must be met. For example, if one wanted to apply settings only to computers in a specific OU when the user was a member of a specific AD group, you would add both conditions and set the rule aggregate to And (All conditions must be met). In this case if both conditions were not met, the filter would not apply. Condition Select OU Computer. Match Select Is Exactly. Value Enter the corresponding OU. Add the filter rule condition, match, and value triplet and repeat for each OU where the virtual desktops reside. Machine Class Optional Operating Systems Optional Connection Optional ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 6

8 Portability Rules Now that we have the necessary filters created, we can move on to Portability Rules. There are 23 default portability rules included with ProfileUnity. Best practice is to migrate only the critical data for users from physical/persistent to virtual desktops. Why not migrate as much as possible? First the longer a user has been using a computer, the more likely it is that the user has settings that will not be needed on the virtual desktop. For example, a user may have registry settings or application data files that will not be applicable on the new virtual desktops, because the application will not exist on the virtual desktop. Another example would be the Start Menu customizations. One would not want to migrate the Start Menu, since it would likely contain shortcuts for applications that will not exist on the virtual desktops. Recommended Portability Rules 3rd Party Applications Registry settings for non-microsoft applications Application Data AppData Roaming User Shell folder Internet Explorer 9 Registry settings, cookies, favorites and history MAPI Profiles Outlook connection settings Office Microsoft Office application user registry settings Printers Network printer connections Recent Windows Recent folder Windows Appearance Windows Explorer User s Windows Explorer settings Windows Themes Only recommend if users are allowed to change the theme. Optional Portability Rules Depending On Requirements Cookies IE cookies (included in the IE Ruleset) Certificates Front Page User registry settings for Front Page Microsoft Online Client Connection settings ODBC User DSN settings for ODBC connections Passwords Encrypted password store for the user Remote Desktop Client User settings Screensaver may not be required. VDI best practice is to disable screen saver. Not Recommended Each of these rules +contains shortcuts to applications that may not be available on the target operating system (OS). Since the user s current OS may have applications installed that will not be available on the new OS, we do not want to migrate these shortcuts and settings, as they may not be usable on the new OS. Active Setup These settings are run once for each user per machine. Program Group Contains shortcuts to applications that appear under Start > Programs. Send To Contains shortcuts to applications that appear when the user right-click s on folder or file. Start Menu Contains shortcuts to applications that appear in Start Menu. ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 7

9 After determining which Portability Rules will be used for the migration, the individual Portability Rule Settings must be created. Three Portability Settings will be required for each Portability Rule. 1. The first rule setting will save the defined registry/files from the physical desktop to a network location. 2. The second rule setting will restore the previously saved settings (from the physical desktop) to the virtual desktop. 3. The third and final rule settings will save/restore the virtual desktop settings to a different network location. Note: That the Physical Desktop Save Rule and the Virtual Desktop Restore Once Rule in the examples below, share the same Save Path, while the Virtual Desktop save/restore rules uses a different Save Path. This allows for a one-way migration and prevents virtual desktop changes from being propagated to the physical desktop. Portability Rule Settings #1 Saving from the Physical Desktop to a Network Location ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 8

10 Portability Rule Settings #2 Restoring Physical Desktop Settings to the Virtual Desktop Portability Rule Settings #3 Saving/Restoring Virtual Desktop Settings to a Different Network Location ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 9

11 Folder Redirection The folder redirection module in ProfileUnity may be used to redirect a user s shell folder from its current location to a new location and migrate any existing files to that new location. Migrations can be accomplished by copying, moving, or syncing (one-way) the data. The copy and move options take place while ProfileUnity is executing at logon and waits for the process to complete before the desktop is available to the user. Once the copy or move process has completed, the user will access the file directly from the redirected location. If changes are made, they are not copied back to the original location by ProfileUnity. If these changes do need be copied back to original location, offline file synchronization should be enabled. For this reason, we will not be using the copy or move functions in folder redirection. Instead, we will use the Sync Only Don t Redirect option. This option will copy the user s files to the new location in the background while the user continues to work on their files. For most migrations, the two user shell folders that need to be migrated are My Documents and the Desktop folders. Folder redirection should be enabled so that the files are copied from the physical computer to the network path using the Sync Only Don t Redirect option. If users have more than one physical computer, to the Redirect to Folder path. If you want the user to only migrate files from the first physical computer for which ProfileUnity executes, select the check box next to Only Migrate Existing Files on Primary Client. This will store each of the physical computer s files in a unique subfolder named the same as the physical computer. Then on virtual desktop rules, the existing files drop down should be set to No Change. This will immediately redirect the user to the network path for their files. Folder Redirection Example #1 For Physical Desktops ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 10

12 Folder Redirection Example #2 For Virtual Desktops Ready To Migrate That s all there is to it! After clicking Save on the Folder Redirection settings, you only need to click Update on the ProfileUnity configuration page and download the updated configuration INI file to the NETLOGON share on your domain controller when ready to deploy and start the migration process. ProfileUnity : One-Way Migration Best Practices Page 11