

Today we have the technology to lay the last remnants of folder redirection to rest. With that said, I do recognize that redirecting the documents folder and maybe the desktop folder as well, may in some circumstances still be relevant, mainly in scenarios where we need to be able to backup files/folders in the Documents and/or Desktop folders. With FSLogix Profile Container now being the de facto solution for profile management, there really is no need to do any kind of folder redirection anymore. If you are still redirecting AppData, please stop, there are alternatives to both Citrix Profile Management AND folder redirection available. However I haven’t seen redirection of the AppData folder for the better part of 10 years now, and there seems to be a general consensus in the EUC world, that redirection of the AppData folder is a no-go as it can lead to a variety of different application related issues.

It’s still not uncommon for me to come across setups with Citrix Profile Management and folder redirection of the documents and desktop folders, occasionally I also see the start menu and favorites folders being redirected. The customer was using Citrix Profile Management with a couple of folder redirections, including folder redirection of AppData. A while ago I was on an assignment at a customer I hadn’t done any previous work for.

This article has been in my head for a quite some time. Are you still using folder redirection and do you still rely on it, to provide a decent logon performance? Then this article is probably for you.
