After you install FlexEngine, the Dynamic Environment Manager agent, in the VMs that
end users will access, you need to enable the agent and point to the configuration file
the agent needs to read when users log in. You also need to point to the profile archive
directories so that user settings can be read and saved. There are a couple of ways to do
this. One is to use the VMware-provided administrative templates for Active Directory Group Policy
Objects. These template files are located inside the
Administrative Templates (ADMX) folder. This folder is included in the same download package
that contains the Dynamic Environment Manager installer. If you use a central store for
administrative templates, copy all the files in the folder to the Sysvol share on the primary
domain controller. The path is \\the name of the primary domain controller\SYSVOL\the
domain name\Policies\PolicyDefinitions. Next, to copy all the language files, open
the en-US folder included in the Administrative Templates (ADMX) folder. Select and copy all
the ADML files in the en-US folder and paste them into the en-US folder inside the PolicyDefinitions
folder on the SYSVOL share. Now you can create a Group Policy Object and
use the templates with this GPO to configure all the required policy settings and any optional
ones you want to use. You can create this GPO for an organizational unit that contains
either user accounts or the computer accounts for the VMs. For this example, we will use
computer accounts. Open Microsoft Group Policy Management editor.
Browse to the OU, right-click and select Create a GPO in this domain and link it here. For
this example, we will name it DEM_GPO. Right-click the GPO and select Edit.
Navigate to Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.
Double-click the policy setting Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon
and set it to enabled. This ensures that the FlexEngine Group Policy client-side extension
runs during each logon. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative
Templates > System > Group Policy. Because we are linking the GPO to an OU of
computers rather than users, we must edit the policy setting Configure user Group Policy
loopback processing mode and set it to enabled. This allows user account policies to be applied
to computer accounts. We also need to set a logoff policy so that
FlexEngine will be able to store the settings configured through the GPO. Navigate to User
Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts (Logon/Logoff). In the right pane,
double-click Logoff and select Add. Enter the path to the location where FlexEngine.exe
is installed on the VMs. The default path is C:\Program Files\Immidio\Flex Profiles\FlexEngine.exe.
Enter -s in the Script Parameters field. Next, we have to point to the Dynamic Environment
Manager configuration file. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > VMware
DEM > FlexEngine and double-click the Flex config files policy setting. Enable the policy,
and type in the UNC path to the configuration file. For this example, the path is \\fileshare100\DEM-Config\General.
Leave the Process folder recursively check box checked.
Double-click the Run FlexEngine as Group Policy Extension policy setting and enable the policy.
This setting enables FlexEngine to run automatically during logon. Next, we’ll point to the profile
archives share. Double-click the Profile archives policy setting. Enable the policy, and type
in the UNC path to the share. For this example, the path is \\fileshare100\DEM_User_Profiles
and then append %username%\Archives to the end of the path so that a unique subfolder
will be created for each user. Leave the Compress profile archives check box checked.
Two other really useful but not absolutely required policies are the profile archives
backup policy and the FlexEngine Logging policy. For backups, double-click the Profile archives
backups policy setting, enable the policy, and enter the path you want to use for backups.
Be sure to append %username%\Backups to the path so that a unique subfolder will be created
for each user. For FlexLogging, double-click the FlexEngine
logging policy setting. Enable the setting and type in the UNC path. Be sure to append
%username%\Logs\FlexEngine.log so that a unique log file will be created for each user. For
the log level, don’t use Debug or Info in production unless you actually need to troubleshoot
something.