Which Citrix Profile Management feature maintains a backup of the NTUSER.DAT file?

Citrix Profile Protection is a feature specifically designed to safeguard against profile corruption. It achieves this by creating and maintaining a backup copy of the NTUSER.DAT file, which contains the user's registry hive. If Profile Management detects that the local NTUSER.DAT file is corrupt upon user logon, it automatically replaces the corrupt file with the last known good backup copy from the user store. This ensures the user can log on successfully and prevents profile-related issues.

A. Active Write Back: This feature synchronizes modified files and folders (but not registry entries) to the user store during the session, preventing data loss from unexpected session termination.
B. Profile Caching: This is a performance feature that caches entire profiles locally after the first logon to speed up subsequent logons. It is not a specific backup mechanism for NTUSER.DAT.
C. Profile Streaming: This feature improves logon performance by fetching files and folders from the user store to the local machine only when they are accessed, rather than downloading the entire profile at logon.

1. Citrix Product Documentation, "Profile protection." Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops documentation.

Section: Profile protection

Content: "Profile protection provides an easy way to protect against profile corruption. It maintains a backup of the NTUSER.DAT file. If Profile Management detects corruption, it reverts to the last known good backup copy to prevent the profile from being used."

2. Citrix Product Documentation, "Active write back." Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops documentation.

Section: Active write back

Content: "This feature writes back modified files and folders (but not registry entries) to the user store in the middle of a session, before logoff."

3. Citrix Product Documentation, "Streamed user profiles." Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops documentation.

Section: To enable profile streaming

Content: "Files and folders in a profile are fetched from the user store to the local computer only when they are accessed by users after they have logged on." This section also implicitly describes profile caching as the alternative to streaming.