Environment Manager
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About User Personalization
User Personalization captures application and desktop changes to a central database and reapplies them for the user upon logon or application start, regardless of operating system or delivery mechanism.
Changes made to an application are synchronized when the application starts or stops. This enables changes to be shared between multiple sessions simultaneously, without the need to log off.
Windows Settings, such as wallpaper, keyboard and mouse preferences are managed when the user logs on and off.
User Personalization enables applications to be discovered and settings managed with minimum configuration.
When a log on request is received from a client endpoint, the Personalization Server uses rules configured in the database to determine who the user is in order to provide the correct configuration based on that user’s personalization group.
The configuration retrieved by the client session from the database at logon determines which applications are managed and the data that is to be virtualized. If a user who is not matched by personalization group membership rules logs on to the system, they are assigned to the default group and managed according to this group’s settings.
An Excluded Users personalization group can be created for users who do not require personalization. By creating a personalization group in which no applications or settings are managed, users matching the membership rules are removed from all user personalization management.
If a known user logs on without any applications configured, no applications are managed.
User Personalization does not work with the Run as command. Personalization relies on a user’s logon credentials to determine which applications are managed. Therefore, if a user runs an application as Administrator or other user, that application is not personalized.
User Personalization requires a live connection to the SQL database which means that changes to the configuration in the Environment Manager console, are immediately committed to the database - unless working offline. The changes are reflected on endpoints when the local configuration is updated; at logon, configuration poll (default time of 10 minutes) or when the EM User Virtualization Service is started.
By default, User Personalization data is archived on a daily basis enabling application and Windows Settings to be rolled back to previous states, in the event of profile inconsistencies.
The Personalization Analysis tool is also provided which enables the administrator to monitor which applications are being controlled by Environment Manager, including how much data is being stored for each user and application.