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Settings for search will need to be embedded in the image. VHDLocations supports environment variables

Thanks Aaron - I can embed the search settings in the base image as they are the same across sites, only the storage location is different. If I set env variables for location using GPO, would they get processed in time at machine startup I wonder - I'll test locally and see. (Takes 8 hrs to replicate an image to their 2nd DC which is why I'm trying to get as much right as I can up front and minimise the amount of images I need to push out)

Hey Dude - not a fan of DFS namespaces? That could help you..... is the use case Active-Active or Active-Passive? https://jkindon.com/2019/10/15/designing-profile-management-with-active-active-resource-locations/

Hey mate, I 've read your article - which is awesome btw 🙂 But in this case I'm trying to shoehorn the solution into an existing setup where we can't make too many changes on the storage side. The storage locations are also on two separate NetApp filers... not sure if that makes a difference, I'm not really across what can be done with a NetApp. Setup is active-active across DCs. Customer isn't fussed about replicating profiles across sites, they are happy for users to have two separate profiles in each site in the event of DR if they had to logon to the alternate farm.

oh in that case that's easy as - just target the profile locations either via a separate policy which applies to the relevant servers, or via registry keys with item level targeting if you need to get really fine grained - i can confirm both approaches work perfectly fine - i have a good one at the moment that has a single policy to control behavioural configurations, but we separate paths to all sorts of different locations around the globe via registry targeting - simple and effective

Cool, so if I embed the search settings in my app layering image, I should be able to push that out to both sites without having to open and cache site specific GPO, and use a machine startup script or similar to set site specific variables for the VHD location? Thanks both for your assistance 🙂

yep - or just basic group policy preferences pointing to a specific location for each site 🙂 probably no need for variables

👆