In prior releases of the CAEN Lab Software Environment (CLSE) for Windows, application configuration changes made by users were saved as part of their "roaming profiles." This feature was deprecated by Microsoft in Windows 10 and replaced by a feature called user environment virtualization (UE-V). While roaming profiles acted as a catch-all for user settings, UE-V saves settings on a per-app basis using a pre-defined template for the application. CAEN continued to utilize roaming profiles in the first year Windows 10 was the base operating system of the CLSE, however, that led to very long login times, profiles becoming corrupted, and instability in the Start menu.
The way UE-V works today is a small default profile used by all Windows CLSE users called a "mandatory profile" is copied from a server at each login. User settings for specific applications are then applied, and user files are made available through redirected folders (e.g. Desktop and Documents). Upon logout, any changes made to an application with a pre-defined UE-V template are saved. Changes to the mandatory profile are discarded so that each user of the computer gets a fresh profile.
CAEN is working to create UE-V templates for applications provided as part of the Windows CLSE. Unfortunately due to the large number of applications, it is not possible to create templates for all of them. Application prioritization is based on a combination of application usage statistics and how time-consuming it is to reconfigure the application.