Deploy user layers 编辑

User layers persist each user’s:

• Profile settings
• Data
• Locally installed applications in non-persistent VDI environments

When you enable user layers on an image template, systems provisioned using the resulting layered images provide every user with a user layer.

When a user logs on to a desktop that is user layer-enabled, a new Search index database is created. The index incorporates search information from the user layer and any elastic layers. The Search feature is only available when the indexing is complete.

This topic explains how to enable user layers on an image template, and on the resulting layered images. Systems that you provision using the images provide every user with a user layer.

Types of user layers

You can enable the following types of user layers:

• Full - All of a user’s data, settings, and locally installed apps are stored on their user layer.
• Office 365 - (Desktop systems) Only the user’s Outlook data and settings are stored on their user layer.
• Session Office 365 - (Session hosts) Only the user’s Outlook data and settings are stored on their user layer.

You can enable a Full user layer, an Office 365 user layer, or a Session Office 365 user layer. Full user layer includes everything that Office 365/Session Office 365 user layer saves, along with the settings and data for other applications.

Requirements

Before enabling user layers, be sure to meet the requirements that apply to the following types of user layers:

• All types of user layers
• Full user layers
• Office 365 and Session Office 365 user layers

All user layers

To enable user layers you need:

• Adequate network bandwidth. Bandwidth and latency have a significant effect on the user layer. Every write goes across the network.
• Enough storage space allocated for users’ data, configuration settings, and their locally installed apps. (The appliance uses the main storage location for packaging layers, publishing layered images, and serving up Elastic layers.)

Full user layers

• When using Profile Management with a Full user layer you must turn off the deletion of the user’s information on logoff. Depending on how you are deploying the settings, you can turn off deletion using either:

  • A Group Policy Object.
  • The policy on the Delivery Controller (DDC).

Office 365 and Session Office 365 user layers

• Use a profile manager, such as the Citrix Profile Manager. Otherwise, Outlook assumes that every user who logs in is a new user and creates OS files for them.
• The Office layer must be included in the image template and deployed in the layered image. However, you can use other Elastic layers with an Office 365 user layer.
• Microsoft Office is supported as an app layer in a published image only, not as an elastic layer.
• Any change to the default location of the search index files is not be preserved in the Office 365 layer.
• This feature has been tested for one desktop per user at a time (Single sign-on).

Compatibility

Full user layers are supported on the following platforms:

• Operating systems: All operating systems must be configured in single user mode to work with user layers. Servers cannot be used in multi-user mode. There is no support for user layers on session hosts.
  • Windows 7, 64-bit
  • Windows 10, 64-bit
  • Windows 11, 64-bit (only if deployed to a platform enabled for offload compositing)
  • Windows Server 2016, single user mode only
  • Windows Server 2019, single user mode only
• Publishing platforms: User layers are supported on the following publishing platforms.
  • Citrix Virtual Desktops
  • VMware Horizon View

Applications that are not supported on a user layer

The following applications are not supported on the user layer. Do not install these applications locally:

• Enterprise applications: Enterprise applications, such as MS Office and Visual Studio, must be installed in app layers. User layers are based on the same technology as elastic layers. As with elastic layers, never use user layers for these enterprise applications!

• Applications with drivers that use the driver store. Example: a printer driver.

  Note:

  You can make printers available using Group Policies. See GPO-installed printers in the following section.

• Applications that modify the network stack or hardware. Example: a VPN client.
• Applications that have boot level drivers. Example: a virus scanner.
• Applications that require you to add a local user or group. Local users and groups that you add as part of installing an application only persist in the OS layer. Consider installing an application on a layer that will be included in the base image, with the required user or administrator added in the OS layer.

Windows updates

Windows updates must be disabled on the user layer.

Outlook store add-ins

Citrix Profile Management disables Store add-ins.

The first time Outlook starts, the Store/Add-ins icon on the ribbon displays a window with a long list of add-ins. During the initial login, if you install add-ins, they appear on the ribbon on subsequent logins. If you do not install the add-ins, the Store/Add-ins icon displays a blank white window.

GPO-installed printers

For users on non-persistent desktops running Windows 10, you can install printers using a Group Policy. With a policy in place, the printers are listed in users’ Devices and Printers, application printer settings, and device manager.

To set up GPO-installed printers:

1. Enable user layers in the image template.
2. Ensure that the desktop is joined to the domain (on the Platform layer).
3. Create a group policy to deploy each network printer, and then assign it to the machine.
4. When logged in as a domain user, verify that the printer is listed in Devices and Printers, Notepad, and device manager.

VMware Horizon View

Horizon View must be configured for non-persistent desktops, and the desktop must be set to Refresh at logoff. Delete or refresh the machine on logoff. Example:

After logging off with View set to Refresh Immediately, the desktop goes into maintenance mode. If there is only one machine in the pool, the pool is not available until that machine has completed the refresh.

• The first time a user logs on to their desktop, the appliance creates a user layer for them.
• Users receive their user layers even if their elastically assigned layers do not load.
• If you rename the user in AD, a new directory and user layer is created for the new name. Change the user’s name in the following places:
  • The directory on the file share.
  • The VHD file on your hypervisor.

Enable user layers on a layered image

To deploy user layers, you enable the layers using the settings in an image template. For detailed steps, see Create or clone an image template. The rest of this article supplies details about sizing, storing, configuring security on, moving, and repairing user layers. It also covers the steps for customizing notifications for end users.

User layer location

When an image template has user layers enabled, the images you publish persist users’ data, settings, and locally installed apps.

When user layers are enabled, you must add storage locations for the layers.

Important:

Do not allow user layers to be saved on the appliance’s main file share. Otherwise, space can be depleted for:

• Upgrading the software.
• Serving up elastic layers to users.
• Saving files that you are moving to a hypervisor for which there is no supported connector.

The first storage location added to the appliance becomes the default location for user layers that are not associated with any other storage location. When you add more storage locations, they are listed in priority order.

You can assign groups of users to each storage location that you add.

Where a user layer is stored when the user belongs to more than one group

If a user belongs to more than one group and those groups are assigned to different storage locations, the person’s user layer is stored in the highest priority storage location.

If you change the priority order of the storage locations that the user is assigned to after the person’s user layer was saved to the highest priority location, data saved up until that point remains in the original location. To preserve the person’s user layer, you must copy their user layer to the new highest priority location.

How to specify the user layer file share location on a specific image

You can support a user who needs to access two separate images at the same time, where both images:

• Need the persistence of user layers.
• Were created using the same OS layer.

To configure user layer file share assignments:

1. Add the following Registry key in one or more of your published images before any user logs in:

   [HKLM\Software\Unidesk\ULayer] “UserLayerSharePath”

You can add the preceding key to the platform layer, to an app layer, or as a machine group policy.

If you add the UserLayerSharePath key to the image before a user logs in, the appliance ignores the user layer share assignments. Instead, all users on the machine use the specified share for user layer VHDs. The \Users subtree is appended to this key to locate the actual layers.

How to specify a custom user layer path

You can set a custom path by creating a REG_SZ value called CustomUserLayerPath in the HKLM\Software\Unidesk\Ulayer key. The HKLM\Software\Unidesk\Ulayer key can include environment variables.

In the CustomUserLayerPath value, all system variables can be expanded, but the only user variables that can be expanded are %USERNAME% and %USERDOMAIN%. The full path would be:

<CustomUserLayerPath>\<OSID_OSNAME>

If you set the custom user layer path using GPO, use %<USERNAME>% and %<USERDOMAIN>% to prevent the GPO from expanding the paths.

• If CustomUserLayerPath is defined, it is used instead of any other path.
• If CustomUserLayerPath is undefined, UserLayerSharePath, which is inside the same key, is used.
• If UserLayerSharePath is undefined, the StorageLocation listed in the JSON for the App Layering appliance is used. You can edit the UserLayerSharePath in the management console, in the System > User Layer Storage Location setting.
• If there is no StorageLocation listed in the JSON from the App Layering appliance, then RepositoryPath is used. You can edit the RepositoryPath at the same registry location as CustomUserLayerPath and UserLayerSharePath.
• When CustomUserLayerPath is defined, the path where user layers will be created will be the expanded path, plus \<OSID_OSNAME>. All other paths are share paths, and they are appended to \Users\<Domain_UserName>\<OSID_OSNAME>.

Where user layers are created on the appliance

On the appliance’s network file share, user layers are created in the Users folder. For example:

\MyServer\\*MyShare*\Users
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