• Centralized and Simplified Management of Windows Environments
• Dynamic, Contextual Policy Management
• Consistent User Experience Across Devices and Locations
• Easy Start for Adding Applications and Environment Settings to Manage
• Application Templates and Application Profiler
• Self-Support Tool
• Helpdesk Support Tool

Some of the most popular reasons why enterprises choose User Environment Manager:

• Saving Users' Settings Across Devices for a consistent user experience
• Improving Logon Times by carrying out tasks dynamically if and when needed instead of all at logon time
• Managing Least Privileges to improve IT ops with privilege elevation to elevate permissions instead of granting local admin privilege to end users
• Providing Desktops Just in Time giving user flexibility to customize while maintaining non-persistent desktops for streamline management

User Environment Manager can be summarized in three parts:

1. Management Console - Primary application interface for IT to configure and manage User Environment Manager.
2. FlexEngine - Agent component, which is installed on the virtual or physical machines that you want to manage.
3. File shares - User Environment Manager relies on a folder hierarchy to store configuration files in the configuration share and user data in the profile archives share.

Overview of the architecture shows how the components relate to each other. All components of User Environment Manager that you deploy communicate between each other by using the SMB protocol.

• User Environment Manager GPO - You create a GPO for each Active Directory organizational unit (OU) you want to manage.
• User Environment Manager NoAD Mode - The NoAD mode is an alternative to configuring User Environment Manager with Active Directory Group Policy. You do not need to create a GPO, logon and logoff scripts, or configure Windows Group Policy settings.  In NoAD mode, all User Environment Manager GPO settings are ignored. If settings from a previous GPO-based deployment are encountered, no actions are performed and a message is logged to the FlexEngine log file.  You can provide the settings for configuring User Environment Manager with the NoAD mode through an XML file on the central configuration share. When a user logs in, FlexEngine reads the settings from the XML file and applies them to the registry.
• User Environment Manager Management Console - You use this User Environment Manager administrative UI to configure application settings, Windows environment manager settings, conditions under which the settings go into effect, and various other configuration settings and Horizon Smart Policies for things like printer mapping, attaching devices to the virtual desktop or application, and the ability to copy and paste text.
• User Environment Manager Application Profiler - For the few applications for which you cannot find an already-created application template, you can use this standalone application that analyzes where the application stores its file and registry configuration, and also set the initial configuration state of the application.
• Central configuration share - You create this file share to store the Management Console configuration and User Environment Manager configuration files. The User Environment Manager agent (FlexEngine) on virtual desktops and RDSH servers reads the configuration file on this share and applies the settings specified in the configuration file.
• Network folder per user - In this file share that you create, each folder, or profile archive, contains ZIP files where the User Environment Manager agent (FlexEngine) stores the personalized settings of a user. For each User Environment Manager (Flex) configuration file that you create, FlexEngine creates a profile archive for each user.
• User Environment Manager Helpdesk Support Tool - This tool provides capabilities to support and maintain the User Environment Manager profile archives and profile archive backups.
• Clients with User Environment Manager FlexEngine - The agent software, FlexEngine, runs on each virtual desktop or RDSH server whose applications are to be managed. This agent reads the centralized configuration file, applies User Environment Manager settings, and saves those user settings that end users are allowed to control. In this client-server architecture, the FlexEngine agent software plays the client role, and the User Environment Manager Flex configuration file plays the server role.
• SyncTool - Laptop users who are not always connected to the corporate network need access to their User Environment Manager configuration files while offline. SyncTool makes all VMware User Environment Manager configuration files available locally and synchronizes changes when users connect to the corporate network. Additionally, users with a slow WAN connection can use local User Environment Manager configuration files, thus limiting network traffic and avoiding continuously roaming personal settings.

By default, User Environment Manager does not manage any applications or environment settings after you install it. You must specify which applications and settings to manage. Although this approach takes a little more work up front, this solution prevents excessive profile growth and profile corruption, enables user settings to roam across Windows versions, and gives you granular control to manage as much or as little of the user experience as needed.

To help with getting started, the Easy Start button instantly adds many common Windows applications, including several versions of Microsoft Office, to the whitelist of applications managed by User Environment Manager. Many Windows environment settings are also added by Easy Start. You can then easily select an application or Windows setting to review and change the default settings.