Citrix VDA User Profiles: The Mysterious "…"

If you’ve ever noticed and wondered what those “…” on the end of the Desktop & Personal entries under “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders” in Regedit (which disappear if you edit the entry and just click OK) when logged on to any Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop VDA were …

They are the result of the Citrix “Special folders redirection” feature (which few environments ever use) – when the feature is not explicitly disabled by policy (see second screenshot), even if it’s not configured to take effect (which is done via StoreFront or default.ica), it causes those two entries to be re-written during logon with a whole bunch of NULs added to the end – it doesn’t seem to affect their behavior, and as mentioned Regedit removes the NULs if you edit the entry, but it’s at least somewhat concerning.

Furthermore, and much more importantly, if the feature is not disabled by policy, it also causes Windows’ “private” recycle bins assigned to any profile subfolders redirected to a network location to be disabled, i.e. even if you configure a default or mandatory profile to move deleted items to the Recycle Bin for a network-redirected Documents or Pictures folder (for example), you’ll find after logon that the configuration has been changed to “Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin” for every network-redirected profile folder.

Easy fix though.

JB

Be sure to follow Jacques Bensimon on Twitter at @JacqBens.