You can use Horizon Persona Management with remote desktops and with physical computers and virtual machines that are not managed by Horizon 7. Persona Management retains changes that users make to their profiles. User profiles comprise a variety of user-generated information.
- User-specific data and desktop settings, which allow the desktop appearance to be the same regard less of which desktop a user logs in to.
- Application data and settings. For example, these settings allow applications to remember toolbar positions and preferences.
- Windows registry entries configured by user applications.
To facilitate these abilities, Persona Management requires storage on a CIFS share equal or greater than the size of the user's local profile.
Minimizing Logon and Logoff Times
Persona Management minimizes the time it takes to log on to and off of desktops. During logon, by default, Horizon 7 downloads only the files that Windows requires, such as user registry files. Horizon 7 takes recent changes in the profile on the remote desktop and copies them to the remote repository at regular intervals.
With Persona Management, you can avoid making any changes to Active Directory in order to have a managed profile. To configure Persona Management, you specify a central repository, without changing the user's properties in Active Directory. With this central repository, you can manage a user's profile in one environment without affecting the physical machines that users might also log on to.
With Persona Management, if you provision desktops with VMware ThinApp applications, the ThinApp sandbox data can also be stored in the user profile. This data can roam with the user but does not significantly affect logon times. This strategy provides better protection against data loss or corruption.
Configuration Options
You can configure Horizon 7 personas at several levels: a single remote desktop, a desktop pool, an OU, or all remote desktops in your deployment. You can also use a standalone version of Persona Management on physical computers and virtual machines that are not managed by Horizon 7.
By setting group policies (GPOs), you have granular control of the files and folders to include in a persona. You can specify whether to include the local settings folder, which files to load at login time, which files to download in the background after a user logs in, and which files within a user's persona to manage with Windows roaming profiles functionality instead of Persona Management.
As with Windows roaming profiles, you can configure folder redirection. You can redirect the following folders to a network share.
| Contacts | My Documents | Save Games |
| Cookies | My Music | Searches |
| Desktop | My Pictures | Start Menu |
| Downloads | My Videos | Startup Items |
| Favorites | Network Neighborhood | Templates |
| History | Printer Neighborhood | Temporary Internet Files |
| Links | Recent Items |
Limitations
Persona Management has the following limitations and restrictions:
- This feature is not supported on instant clone desktop pools.
- You must have a Horizon 7 license that includes the Personal Management component.
- Persona Management requires a CIFS (Common Internet File System) share.
- This feature is not supported for use with persistent disk on Windows 10 linked-clone desktop pools.
