Windows User Profiles and Folder Redirection options

There are various technologies available in Windows client and server operating systems for managing user profiles and folder redirection in an Active Directory environment. User profiles and folder redirection are methodologies used for accomplishing User State virtualization, also most recently called User Experience virtualization (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/ue-v/uev-for-windows).

There are two main approaches in the user profile technology. One major approach is the file-based approach where user profile files are synced back and forth between the central user file repository residing in a highly available SMB file share and a locally synced copy. Such an example is Citrix Profile Management (see below section for more details). The other major approach is container-based user profiles, which are based on vhdx containers where all relevant user profile information is stored. Such an example is Microsoft FsLogix profile technology (see below section for more details).

Folder redirection works alongside a roaming profile solution to redirect user folders to a distributed location. Folder Redirection enables users and administrators to redirect the path of a known folder to a new location, manually or by using Group Policy. The new location can be a folder on the local computer or a directory on a file share. Users interact with files in the redirected folder as if it still existed on the local drive.