Upgrading to 2008 for Citrix - Policies and profiles?

[iaind]

As above really, I'm installing some new servers for our XenApp setup (published desktops) so I'm going to use it as an excuse to get them onto 2008.

Our DCs are both 2003 and we have the usual lockdown policies, documents redirection etc set up. We use the TS profile path in AD to create a Citrix specific profile.

How easily will these carry across to 2008? Should I be looking at getting our DCs onto 2008 too for group policies?

Anything else I should be aware of in terms of profiles, policies etc?

 

[Hellsmk2]

You shouldn't have too many problems. When you move your profiles over though, use ntbackup to do it, or you may find you have a nightmare with permissions after the change.

Are you upgrading or building a new 2008 server?

 

[iaind]

They're roaming profiles so no need to move them - just need to be sure that all the settings etc will carry over OK.

It will be a clean installation

 

[palmy]

Just a quick post as I saw the poor response above and felt I had to say something.

Profiles completely change in 2008/Vista/7. Google it.

Don't use ntbackup, robocopy is a far better method. Again Google it.

I hate to say this but you shouldnt be performing an upgrade such as this with such little knowlege/experience. These are pretty basic questions to be asking on a forum.

Go away, build a test environment and find out for yourself.

 

[ubern00b]

To answer your question assuming I understand correctly that you will merely be running 2008 as the OS on top of which XenApp will be running then there should be no issues with profiles etc. I have just built 10 new VM's all 2008 and running XenApp and I have had no issues with them.

At the end of the day your not installing them as DC's or anything so I don't understand why people are saying "copy your profiles over using robocopy"... surely the profiles will copy themselves across from your TSProfiles path themselves when the user logs in for the first time?

If I have misunderstood I do apologise! Just as a side note I am complete fanboy of AppSense and its profile management in a Citrix environment!

 

[BluBallz]

I hate to say this but you shouldnt be performing an upgrade such as this with such little knowlege/experience.

That's a little presumptuous not knowing the OP's background.

These are pretty basic questions to be asking on a forum.

Surely the point of a forum is to ask opinion and gain knowledge from others?

/rant

 

[iaind]

Just a quick post as I saw the poor response above and felt I had to say something.

Profiles completely change in 2008/Vista/7. Google it.

Don't use ntbackup, robocopy is a far better method. Again Google it.

I hate to say this but you shouldnt be performing an upgrade such as this with such little knowlege/experience. These are pretty basic questions to be asking on a forum.

Go away, build a test environment and find out for yourself.

I think you might want to go and re-read my posts before you start insulting my experience and knowledge, you'll notice I never even mentioned NTbackup.

I'm actually a CCA and MCSA and have been working in the industry for more than 5 years so dont lecture me on ntbackup mmmkay? I was actually just asking for real world experiences of doing similar things, I'm well aware profiles have changed but real world experience is much more valuable than knowledgebase articles IME.

Anyway, I've been reading up on Citrix Profile manager - seeing as we're entitled to it anyway I think we should consider implementing it. From what I can gather it should convert the profile to a Citrix profile on first login, then use that when logging into any machine with the service installed (regardless of GP/AD settings for policies). Also means we should be able to speed up logins by decreasing the size of profiles and make them platform independant - win win