Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?
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I am setting up Windows 2016 RDS server to retire an old 2008 R2 RDS server. The server provides access to our ERP system, FileMaker and Fishbowl Inventory for remote users. Each of these applications still only support Server 2016.
I currently have about 30 active user profiles on the old one and they are automatically created and pointed to a D:\ partition. I had forgotten about the newer (than 2008 R2) User Profiles Disk feature and am wondering if I should look at moving to that configuration, or just stick with the current type of config.
Are User Profile Disks the standard now? Are they good, bad or it depends?
If I should just keep doing what I am doing, is there an actual migration process for the profiles
or
should I use something like ForensIT to migrate the profiles
or
just have everyone login to the new server and do a robocopy of certain directories (like the desktop)? -
I can't speak to the Migration process, but I have an RDS & VDI farm with Server 2012 R2 & User Profile Disks... It works great!
Edit: This was built completely around the use of UPDs.
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@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
I can't speak to the Migration process, but I have an RDS & VDI farm with Server 2012 R2 & User Profile Disks... It works great!
Edit: This was built completely around the use of UPDs.
Thanks for the input, @dafyre. I could try that route. I am just not sure how the apps will handle it. I guess I can try setting it up to test and burn it down if it has obvious issues.
The beauty of virtualization.
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@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
I can't speak to the Migration process, but I have an RDS & VDI farm with Server 2012 R2 & User Profile Disks... It works great!
Edit: This was built completely around the use of UPDs.
Thanks for the input, @dafyre. I could try that route. I am just not sure how the apps will handle it. I guess I can try setting it up to test and burn it down if it has obvious issues.
The beauty of virtualization.
The apps won't care. Unlike folder redirection, the UPD is mounted at C:\Users\username so the app won't even know it.
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reading this, https://4sysops.com/archives/user-profile-disks-on-windows-10/, it says that each version of Windows 10 needs to be in a different folder for UPD. How do you handle upgrading to a new version and updating the profile to go along with that upgrade?
I don't see a way for the computer to know the location of the next version's file share, so It can't copy it during version upgrade.
As this is meant to be used with VDI only, perhaps the expectation is that you would deploy a whole new VDI as the new version, and an upgrade would never happen - OK Fine.. but the profiles used on the previous version would still exist, so.... how do you use them with the new version of Windows 10?
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@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
As this is meant to be used with VDI only, perhaps the expectation is that you would deploy a whole new VDI as the new version, and an upgrade would never happen - OK Fine.. but the profiles used on the previous version would still exist, so.... how do you use them with the new version of Windows 10?
Well, I didn't see that it was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
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@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
As this is meant to be used with VDI only, perhaps the expectation is that you would deploy a whole new VDI as the new version, and an upgrade would never happen - OK Fine.. but the profiles used on the previous version would still exist, so.... how do you use them with the new version of Windows 10?
Well, I didn't see that it was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
I over stated - UPDs are meant for RDS and VDI, not normal bare metal desktop style use.
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@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
As this is meant to be used with VDI only, perhaps the expectation is that you would deploy a whole new VDI as the new version, and an upgrade would never happen - OK Fine.. but the profiles used on the previous version would still exist, so.... how do you use them with the new version of Windows 10?
Well, I didn't see that it was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
I over stated - UPDs are meant for RDS and VDI, not normal bare metal desktop style use.
Oh, OK. Back on the table at this point.
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@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
reading this, https://4sysops.com/archives/user-profile-disks-on-windows-10/, it says that each version of Windows 10 needs to be in a different folder for UPD. How do you handle upgrading to a new version and updating the profile to go along with that upgrade?
I don't see a way for the computer to know the location of the next version's file share, so It can't copy it during version upgrade.
As this is meant to be used with VDI only, perhaps the expectation is that you would deploy a whole new VDI as the new version, and an upgrade would never happen - OK Fine.. but the profiles used on the previous version would still exist, so.... how do you use them with the new version of Windows 10?
It's funny...I get something completely different out of that article. That article seems to make it sound like you can do a UPD actually on the client systems NOT using VDI.
In the case of using VDI though, everybody would be on the SAME versiion of Windows. So you wouldn't need separate profiles for Win10 1607, 1709, and 1903 (or whatever)... You'd upgrade your Master image to 1903, and then deploy it (after heavy testing, of course). Bam! Everybody's on Win10 1903.
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@wrx7m FSLogix is now included with Remote Desktop Services CALs. That User Profile Disk (UPDs) setup is a step up from the native UPDs.
We've been using UPDs since they were included in RDS. It makes the need for roaming profiles of some sort for larger farms moot. We locate the UPDs on a decent performing file server and make sure to set up the defaults with data growth in mind.
Let's say we set a default size of 30GB for the UPD. We can then mount the template file and shrink the partition in there down to say 5GB. Then, when a user comes close to running out of space we can increase their partition size within their UPD very easily.
We still redirect Desktop and My Documents plus the subfolders to provide some security to the user's data.
We have yet to deploy a RDS Farm using FSLogix. That's next on our RDS To Do List to thrash the setup.
EDIT: When migrating a user to a new farm they get a new UPD and thus the need is there for a bit of post logon configuration. We usually do this when setting the user account up in the new collection.
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@PhlipElder said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
FSLogix is now included with Remote Desktop Services CALs.
I totally missed the announcement on that. At one point it was being looked at here but dropped for cost. Will have to look again.
UPDs were a bit dodgy when we experimented with them but I'm reasonably sure that was due to GPO cruft. Hoping to get that cleaned up for another attempt soon.
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@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
It's funny...I get something completely different out of that article. That article seems to make it sound like you can do a UPD actually on the client systems NOT using VDI.
that is the whole purpose of that article - is to show you how to 'break the rules' and do it on a local client, but he does say at the top that it's meant for VDI and RDS.
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@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
In the case of using VDI though, everybody would be on the SAME versiion of Windows. So you wouldn't need separate profiles for Win10 1607, 1709, and 1903 (or whatever)... You'd upgrade your Master image to 1903, and then deploy it (after heavy testing, of course). Bam! Everybody's on Win10 1903.
That doesn't answer how you migrate profiles though from one version to the next.
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@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
It's funny...I get something completely different out of that article. That article seems to make it sound like you can do a UPD actually on the client systems NOT using VDI.
that is the whole purpose of that article - is to show you how to 'break the rules' and do it on a local client, but he does say at the top that it's meant for VDI and RDS.
Well dang... I need to go back and read that again, lol.
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@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
In the case of using VDI though, everybody would be on the SAME versiion of Windows. So you wouldn't need separate profiles for Win10 1607, 1709, and 1903 (or whatever)... You'd upgrade your Master image to 1903, and then deploy it (after heavy testing, of course). Bam! Everybody's on Win10 1903.
That doesn't answer how you migrate profiles though from one version to the next.
If all you're saving in the Profiles is Desktop,Docs, Pictures, and Videos... Why do you need to migrate the profiles?
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@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
You can actually UDP even without VDI, they are not only meant for VDI for sure. That's how I have multiple RDS deployments.
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@dbeato said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
You can actually UDP even without VDI, they are not only meant for VDI for sure. That's how I have multiple RDS deployments.
Yeah, it's made for both RDS and VDI. In the Wizard for setting up a VDI or RDS Collection asks about UPDs.
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@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@dbeato said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
You can actually UDP even without VDI, they are not only meant for VDI for sure. That's how I have multiple RDS deployments.
Yeah, it's made for both RDS and VDI. In the Wizard for setting up a VDI or RDS Collection asks about UPDs.
Yeah, I was going to say that too.
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@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@Dashrender said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@dafyre said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
In the case of using VDI though, everybody would be on the SAME versiion of Windows. So you wouldn't need separate profiles for Win10 1607, 1709, and 1903 (or whatever)... You'd upgrade your Master image to 1903, and then deploy it (after heavy testing, of course). Bam! Everybody's on Win10 1903.
That doesn't answer how you migrate profiles though from one version to the next.
If all you're saving in the Profiles is Desktop,Docs, Pictures, and Videos... Why do you need to migrate the profiles?
You're not - it has everything the profile has in it.. all the settings, etc. And they are version dependent.
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@dbeato said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
@wrx7m said in Windows RDS User Profiles - Migrate, Recreate or User Profile Disks?:
was meant for vdi only. I'm not doing vdi, so I I guess that makes the decision between migrating profiles or recreating them manually.
You can actually UDP even without VDI, they are not only meant for VDI for sure. That's how I have multiple RDS deployments.
Exactly - but the article I posted was a person who went against the purpose of UPD and found a way to use them on local Windows 10 machines... so, sure, it can be done, it's just 100% no supported by MS.
