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UE-V’s power is in its simplicity. Right out of the box, UE-V will extract and roam user settings for Windows (such as the desktop background), Internet Explorer, a few built-in applications, and Microsoft Office 2010. But if I had to bet, your organization uses a lot more than just those few pieces of software.
Before creating your own application settings location templates, check out Microsoft’s Gallery. Common application templates, such as one for Adobe Acrobat or Mozilla Firefox, can be found here.
UE-V Generator
If your application isn’t listed, you will need to create a custom template using the UE-V Generator. As a recommendation, treat the UE-V template creation machine the same way you would treat an application packaging or virtualization machine. For a list of best practices, see this TechNet article. Once your reference virtual machine is setup, you will need to install the UE-V Generator.
UE-V Generator installation wizard
Continue through the installation wizard. As a recommendation in the installation process, enable automatic updates for the UE-V Generator and join the Customer Experience Improvement Program. Surprisingly, in my test lab, the installation took much longer than expected.
The UE-V Generator, finally installed!
Once installation has completed, take a snapshot before proceeding. If your application is not installed, go ahead and install it. As an example, we will create a template for Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) in order to roam Navigation Nodes.
Creating the Template
By using the UE-V Generator, template creating is a snap! Once the Generator has been launched, select Create a Settings Location Template. Specify the path to your application. Optionally, you can specify the starting location and any command line arguments needed.
To create a blank template, clear the Run checkbox.
Once we hit next, ADAC will automatically launch. While it launches, the Generator will monitor read and write locations that ADAC uses.
The UE-V Generator is still monitoring application data locations.
After ADAC is completely launched and the wizard search is finished, close the application. You will then need to review the locations that the wizard discovered and save your template.
When naming, be as specific as possible for that application.
Testing the Template
Before rolling out the newly created template across your organization, you will want to ensure that it properly roams your desired data (and will not roam extra or potentially dirty data). Launch PowerShell and import the UEV module.
import-module UEV
Navigate to your newly created template and register it with the Register-UevTemplate command.
Register-UevTemplate .\Desktop\dsacl.xml
Get-UevTemplate
Get-UevTemplate will show all registered templates for all users.
To filter the Get-UevTemplate output, you can simply add the template name to the end of the command.
Register-UevTemplate .\Desktop\dsacl.xml
Get-UevTemplate DSAC
The ADAC template is ready to test
Before continuing, let’s take a look at our SettingsPackages folder within our Home Directory and notice the lack of an ADAC folder.
SettingsPackages folder
To test our template, we will launch ADAC on our client machine and configure a Custom Navigation Node. Then we will close ADAC.
We added a quick link to our Domain Controllers OU.
Once closed, take another look at our Home Directory. It saved ADAC data!
Our Home Directory with a DSAC folder.
To ensure that UE-V will actually roam our navigation node, either delete your local profile (and then log back in) or register the template on another computer. I registered the template on another computer, launched ADAC, and sure enough – our navigation node was there! Now we can have a fully customized Administrative Center console and have it follow you on all of your machines!!
Distributing the Template
At 3:30 AM, every day, the UE-V Agent will check for new Settings Location Templates and will register them for all users. This is accomplished through a scheduled task. To take advantage of this, you will need a network location to store the templates. The recommended setup can be found here. Because Domain Computers will need read permissions, you can most likely create a sub-folder on a software distribution server.
As a note, any template removed from the share will automatically be unregistered
How does the UE-V client know which share to monitor? Well, that’s up to you. You can configure the client through WMI, PowerShell, command line (during installation), and with Group Policy! I would personally choose Group Policy for transparency and ease of access.
To configure a Custom Settings Template Location share, enable the Setting Template Catalog Path option within your UE-V Configuration GPO. Then specify your share path.
If you do not have the UE-V ADMX settings, you can get them here.
Application Rollback
When an application’s user data is synced by UE-V, you can instantly roll that application back to a default state. I, for one, cannot count the number of times I have wiped a computer or profile because a user messed up an application. This UE-V feature is sure to save a significant amount of time!
The easiest way to rollback an application is to launch PowerShell as the troublesome user. As an example, we are going to wipe away our ADAC data. To do so, type:
Get-UevTemplate *DSAC* | Restore-UevUserSetting.
If you know the template name or application name, you can add a –template or –application option.
Once we launch ADAC, our Navigation Node (plus any other ADAC settings) are gone!
ADAC is back to a pristine state
If you do create a Settings Location Template, be sure to upload it to the UE-V Gallery! If you wish to use the ADAC sample template in your environment, it can be downloaded here.
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My question is how do I use UE-V to roam users desktop icons and shortcuts? (Not just the background).
Is folder re-direction the way to go with that?
Hi Tim – UE-V is designed for roaming settings. Roaming Profiles or Folder redirection would be the technology for roaming icons/shortcuts/files.
Hi
i have ate an issue when a new local profile is created it writes back to the setting share and resets all the settings a user customised. We are using local profiles, can anyone help?