It’s been now more than three years since the release of the first version of Microsoft User Profile Hive Cleanup Service (UPHClean) and the response in the community was tremendously. During that time many Companies had big problems with the use of roaming profiles and some of them still have. UPHClean was and is the only answer from Microsoft to solve their profile solution, in person Robin Caron. The task for Robin was easy (not really) “Build a utility or service that once and for all gets rid of problems with user profile not unloading”
A review from the past
1997 Microsoft published a White paper (Q161334) on profiles and policies explaining the usage. As many of you might remember, at that time multiframe (Terminal Services) technology was in the beginning and it’s no wonder that there is no reference to such an environment in the paper.
A quote from the White paper:
“A roaming user is a user who logs on to the network from different computers at different times. This type of user may use a kiosk or may share a bank of computers with other users.”
This is clearly targeted on client server model but a very view people use it. Why only a view? Have you ever worked with Windows NT system policies, roaming profiles and FAT Clients? NT system policies are known as “Tattooing“ and was more a pain than easy administration.
Later on, Microsoft’s Active Directory introduced folder redirection and group policies and they really solved the system policies issue and made it more useable.
Nowadays we have Windows 2003 R2 and Longhorn is knocking on the door but what did Microsoft with their roaming profiles solution? Citrix and Terminal Services are all over the place but in my opinion the profile handling was not improved by Microsoft! I also think Microsoft underestimates the profile problem, especially in a Server-based computing environment.
Where is the Profile virtualization, so I can copy it to a USB stick, store it somewhere on the Internet and can use it when ever I want to? Microsoft should finally start re-designing their profile solution. In the meantime everyone’s hope lies on UPHClean and smart free or 3rd. party solutions to get controlled and a stable profile solution.
UPHClean 1.x
It took six years before UPHClean was developed to help overcome profiles issues. The biggest problem was that profiles where sometimes not unloaded from the system registry. This often ends in a complete disaster where user got frustrated and Administrators with hairs on fire. The most common problem is an open registry handle from another process (like Microsoft installer) with higher rights as the user. This situation keeps the profile loaded in the system registry. This then might blow the server (when more and more profiles are stored in the registry, SRL) or might block re-logins etc. from the same user.
Robins hive cleanup service really solves that problem and was a big relive for the community. UPHClean is one of my default installations for a Server (also Workstation) running Terminal Service and for many others too.
UPHClean 2.x
In the summer of 2005 I received an E-mail from Robin where he asked for some feedback about existing problems and how to improve the service further more. You have to understand that Robin is very committed to his task trying to solve the load- and unload of profiles from a windows system. So I started giving him feedback and suggestions about the UPHClean service.
New features and fixes
Timing fix
In some situation there was a timing issue with Winlogon and UPHClean where Winlogon stopped trying to unload the profile before UPHClean finished it's work. This left the profile unloaded but UPHClean reported success in the event log and is actually right! UPHClean released the handles but there was no one unloading the profile. As a prove, regedt32 can be used to unload the user profile hive from the registry manually. The timing issue is now fixed.
Open file handles
Besides open registry handles, open file handles to the user profile can have a bad influence of the load- and unload procedure. It’s almost the same as with open registry handles but this time winlogon can not remove or delete the profile from the local system. If the same user logs in again, he or she often get’s a new profile like username.000, username.001 etc. If the user then logs off, he or she will overwrite the central profile. Again, the user get’s frustrated.
The hive clean service can now close open file handles to user profiles during logoff!
This is not without a risk; since UPHClean removes access to files or directories, a file could be corrupted. Also the process might be unable to write further data or it could cause the process to fail because it cannot read from the file. During testing this has not been found to be true but there is still a chance that it could happen. This is the reason why the remap feature is disabled by default.
To enable the feature you have to set the following registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\UPHClean\Parameters
SHARING_VIOLATION_REMAP REG_DWORD 0X00000001
Without enabling the remapping feature, UPHClean will automatically detect sharing violation during the user logoff and retry the failed operation for a small amount of time. You can control the amount of time using the SHARING_VIOLATION_DELAY value. This value is specified in millisecond and has a default value of 1000 millisecond.
File permissions
In some cases a program might change file permissions or creates a new file/folder within the profile so badly that even the system can’t delete it. To resolve the issue you have to take ownership first before you can delete the file or folder. UPHClean takes care of those situations.
Real world problems
When reading the new features, does something sound familiar for you? Ever encountered open file handle issue? I will give now some real example where UPHClean will help you.
VMware hgfs.dat
VMware creates the hgfs.dat file in profile folder for the first user that logs in and keeps it open. When using roaming profiles you get a problem with that. (read VMware FAQ1317 for a solution)
SUN Java (JRE)
In some cases SUN Java creates a folder called hsperfdata
with file permissions only set to the user and can not be removed by the system without taking ownership. SUN say’s this is by design (bug id 5042659)
Microsoft Internet explorer cookies and favorites
Favorites and cookie files sometimes excide more than 255 chars and can only be deleted through the command line
Also suspects for open file handles:
SAP SapGui (SapWorkDir), Imprivata SSO, Indexing Software, Virus scanner etc.
Become a Beta Tester!
Now it’s your chance to become a beta tester for UPHClean 2.x for Windows 32- and 64Bit systems!
What you have to do for beta testing? Very simple!
Prerequisites
You have currently a open file handle etc. issue with profiles
You send (short) feedback , good or bad about you experience
You match the prerequisites, then you are a perfect candidate! Fill out the following form and you will receive UPHClean 2.x within the next days.
http://www.thomaskoetzing.de/index.p...158&Itemid=246
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