VMware UEM Troubleshooting

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VMware UEM Troubleshooting

UEM has pretty decent in-built logging which can and should be used to initially troubleshoot both slow logon and application launch times.  As it crops up for me relatively frequently I thought I would do a video running through some of the processes I use.

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UEM Network Drive Management

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Traditionally you might map user network drives via a logon script or maybe a group policy preference.  VMware’s User Environment Manager (UEM) gives you some other nice options in the fun filled world of drive mappings!

We can take a conventional approach by mapping a drive for all users or targeting by an AD object such as group or OU.  OK, so far so group policy preferences!

  

 

 

Why don’t we map a drive on a per application basis?  Using UEM we can associate the mapped drive with an app and set it to apply ‘on demand’ when said application is launched.  This avoids the need for the drive mapping to happen at user logon but it is available when required. 

  

 

 

But what about my power users that want to be able to manually map drives (and persist them across devices)?  UEM does not capture these manually mapped drives by default but we can add the below registry location so this information is stored and reproduced in a different session

I’ve used network drives as an example here but by moving application settings into UEM we can optimise the logon process, provide a consistent user experience and control all relevant app settings in one place.  Very Nice!

APPVOLS and UEM - a great partnership

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APPVOLS and UEM - a great partnership

I have been recently been working on a project deliver applications with VMware Appvols to View VDI Desktops. User Environment Manager (UEM) is also employed to roam the user preferences and predefined settings for those apps, these technologies are working really well and offer a significant improvement over using ThinApp alone and View Persona Management.

UEM

AppVols

The application capture process with AppVols is fairly straightforward. Below I will give you a basic run though of the process. 

Capturing the App

  •  Provision an Appstack and attach it to a capture VM.

Step One

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Step Two

Step Three

  • Install your applications natively on the capture VM and test that they work.
  • Finish the provisioning and assign to an AD object be it user /group /computer /OU etc.

**As the apps are installed as if natively installed it drastically simplifies the process from some virtualisation/packaging procedures.

Capturing the application settings with UEM

  • Launch the application through the UEM profiler on a UEM capture machine.

  • Set any predefined settings in the app.
  • Save the configuration file(s).
  • Apply the settings as required.
  • This enables the environment to provide the user with their applications and associated settings/preferences that follow them across non-persistent floating VDI sessions.
  • I have set the personalised application settings to load on launch of the app executable so UEM is very efficient by only loading the settings when the app is in use.

UEM also comes with some built in templates for common applications (such as Office and Adobe Reader) saving time with deployment.

The predefined settings are loaded on demand on the first launch of the app and subsequent user changes are then added to the settings files and persist.

I am really impressed with what I have seen so far so stay tuned for some further articles!

Further Reading

 https://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/tag/uem-application-profiler

 https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/appvolumes/vmware-appvolumes-datasheet.pdf

 https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/user-environment-manager/vmware-user-environment-mngr-datasheet.pdf