Transfer from GPO to WEM

[Pete Moss1709152631]

Hi All, 

 

Just implemented WEM for some of our users that access a published desktop from XenApp 7.15. If a user with a fresh profile (no previous UPM or GPO's assigned), all our settings are applying with no issues, everything is good and working well (logon times are amazing).

 

Thinking about our cutover from GPO to WEM, I then started to test with a user that had a previous UPM and the older GPOs we want to remove. I saw that even though the GPO's are no longer applying, there's a whole bunch of settings still applying (start menu redirection still present,  theme is missing, black backgrounds and text, control panel not restricted etc....) - not a great experience so I assume this is because some of it has been captured in the UPM. 

 

What are the recommendations when transferring to WEM? I don't particularly want to give everyone new profiles. 

 

Many thanks, 

 

Pete

[James Kindon]

its always a matter of testing for the most part - i have done multiple cut-overs moving people from GPO based GPP to WEM settings and have never had to create new profiles (could be unique for you though). Few points

• You don't have to do everything in one hit. if you have USV based settings like folder redirection working via GPO, you don't have to move them to WEM straight away, same for UPM. You can stage it
• There is a support article around if you HAVE decided to move UPM and everything over https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX219086
• Don't disregard GPO. I drive many many environments with GPO for the most part, however i rip all GPP out where possible and drive that with WEM. Not all options in WEM work as expected against all Operating Systems
• If you have removed start menu redirection, you need to actually force it back to its original location

 

[David Ott1709152917]

IMHO you should not try to move all GPO settings to WEM.  I use GPO to lock down the workstations/servers (ie: remove the shutdown option, set trusted sites, hide drives, etc.) then I use WEM to customize the user session (plug in application specific registry entries, create shortcuts based on user group membership, and run custom executables I have created to replace "logon scripts").  I've also noticed that every once in a while WEM will fail to run after logon, so I don't trust it 100%.