With Horizon Persona Management, you can migrate existing user profiles in a variety of settings to Horizon desktops. When users log in to their Horizon desktops after a profile migration is complete, they are presented with the personal settings and data that they used on their legacy systems.

By migrating user profiles, you can accomplish the following desktop migration goals:

  • You can upgrade Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops to Windows 10 Horizon desktops.
  • You can upgrade your users' systems from legacy Windows XP to Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 and migrate your users from physical computers to Horizon for the first time.
  • You can upgrade legacy Windows XP Horizon desktops to Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops.
  • You can migrate from physical computers to Horizon desktops without upgrading the operating systems.

To support these scenarios, Horizon Persona Management provides a profile migration utility and a standalone Horizon Persona Management installer for physical or virtual machines that do not have View Agent 5.x installed.

Important: View Agent 6.1 and later releases do not support Windows XP and Windows Vista desktops. View Agent 6.0.2 is the last release that supports these guest operating systems. Customers who have an extended support agreement with Microsoft for Windows XP and Vista, and an extended support agreement with VMware for these guest operating systems, can deploy the View Agent 6.0.2 version of their Windows XP and Vista desktops with Connection Server 6.1.

With the user profile migration utility, you can perform an important task in a migration from a legacy Windows XP desktop deployment to a desktop deployment that will continue to be supported in future releases.

User Profile Migration Scenarios shows various migration scenarios and outlines the tasks you should perform in each scenario.

Table 1. User Profile Migration Scenarios
If This Is Your Original Deployment... And This Is Your Destination Deployment... Perform These Tasks:
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops Windows 10 Horizon desktops
  1. Configure the Windows 10 Horizon desktops with Horizon Persona Management for your users. See Configuring a Horizon Persona Management Deployment.
    Note: Do not roll out the Windows 10 Horizon desktops to your users until you complete step 2.
  2. Run the View V2 to V5/V6 profile migration utility.
    • For the source profiles, specify the remote profile repository for existing Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops.
    • For the destination profiles, specify the remote profile repository that you configured for the Windows 10 Horizon desktops.

    For details, see the Horizon 7 User Profile Migration document.

  3. Allow your users to log in to their Windows 10 Horizon desktops.
Windows XP physical computers Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops
  1. Configure Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops with Horizon Persona Management for your users. See Configuring a Horizon Persona Management Deployment.
    Note: Do not roll out the Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops to your users until you complete step 2.
  2. Run the View V1 to V2 profile migration utility.
    • For the source profiles, specify the local profiles on the Windows XP physical computers.
    • For the destination profiles, specify the remote profile repository that you configured for the Horizon deployment.

    For details, see the Horizon 7 User Profile Migration document.

  3. Allow your users to log in to their Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops.
Windows XP physical computers or virtual machines that use a roaming user profile solution. For example, your deployment might use one of these solutions:
  • Horizon Persona Management
  • RTO Virtual Profiles
  • Windows roaming profiles

In this scenario, the original user profiles must be maintained in a remote profile repository.

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops
  1. Configure Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops with Horizon Persona Management for your users. See Configuring a Horizon Persona Management Deployment.
    Note: Do not roll out the Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops to your users until you complete step 2.
  2. Run the View V1 to V2 profile migration utility.
    • For the source profiles, specify the remote profile repository for the Windows XP systems.
    • For the destination profiles, specify the remote profile repository that you configured for the Horizon deployment.

    For details, see the Horizon 7 User Profile Migration document.

  3. Allow your users to log in to their Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops.
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 physical computers or virtual machines.

The legacy systems cannot have View Agent 5.x installed.

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops
  1. Configure Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops with Horizon Persona Management for your users. See Configuring a Horizon Persona Management Deployment.
  2. Install the standalone Horizon Persona Management software on the Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 systems. See Install Standalone Horizon Persona Management.
  3. Configure the legacy Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 systems to use the same remote profile repository as the Horizon desktops. See Configure a User Profile Repository.

    The easiest approach is to use the same Horizon Persona Management group policy settings in Active Directory to control both the legacy systems and the Horizon desktops. See Add the Horizon Persona Management ADMX Template File.

  4. Roll out your Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Horizon desktops to your users.