Managing FSLogix Profile Size: Best Practices with ControlUp Monitoring and Profile Cleanup Automation

A community member transitioning from eG Enterprise to ControlUp in a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or remote desktop services (RDS) environment inquired about managing FSLogix profile size through logon or logoff scripts executed by ControlUp. The goal was to reduce profile bloat by deleting specific files within user profiles during session start or end. It was clarified that ControlUp does not support traditional logon or logoff scripts in the classical sense, although it can trigger scripts on events such as “User logged On.” This functionality, however, is not ideally suited for the described profile cleanup use case.

Regarding FSLogix profile management, the conversation highlighted that VHD disk compaction is enabled by default in recent FSLogix releases, which automatically helps reduce profile size. However, disk compaction alone may not be sufficient. A practical approach mentioned involved setting up ControlUp alerts to monitor profile conditions—such as low disk space—triggering notifications through ServiceNow tickets for manual intervention by the VDI team. Although automation was still a work in progress, this method added a layer of proactive management.

Another critical recommendation was the use of the FSLogix redirections.xml configuration file. This file allows administrators to exclude certain paths or folders within the user profile—such as temporary files or application cache—from being saved. By strategically excluding these locations, profile bloat can be effectively reduced before it accumulates. The official Microsoft documentation on VHD Disk Compaction (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/concepts-vhd-disk-compaction) and the redirections.xml configuration (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/concepts-redirections-xml) provide authoritative guidance on these techniques.

For scripted profile cleanup during user logoff, the community recommended leveraging traditional Group Policy Object (GPO) or Citrix Workspace Environment Management (WEM) tools. One valuable resource shared was Aaron Parker’s Profile Cleanup script (https://stealthpuppy.com/fslogix/profilecleanup/), which is widely used for automating the removal of unwanted files in FSLogix profiles.

In summary, while ControlUp offers monitoring and alerting capabilities that can assist in managing FSLogix profile size, tasks like cleaning profile contents on logon or logoff are better handled by existing scripting mechanisms triggered outside of ControlUp, such as GPO or WEM. Employing FSLogix’s built-in disk compaction and profile exclusion features forms the foundation of efficient profile size management complemented by monitoring workflows for remediation alerts.

Read the entire ‘Managing FSLogix Profile Size: Best Practices with ControlUp Monitoring and Profile Cleanup Automation’ thread below:

Hello community. I’ve been living in an eG world for many years but am now deploying CU to customers as well, so please allow me a few very rudimentary questions if you may….

I’m always looking for new ways to help manage FSLogix profile size. Is it possible to use CU to run a logon or logoff script, delete a specific set of files inside the user’s profile, to help reduce bloat? Or is are we best left to using logoff or perhaps WEM actions to do such things? This is usually in a VDI/RDS context of course.

Thanks

VHD disk compaction is enabled by default in new releases of FSLogix
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/concepts-vhd-disk-compaction

That being said, compaction can only do so much so in my environment I have a trigger within ControlUp to alert our VDI team via a ServiceNow ticket to reset or clear out files in the user’s profile. Still working on a reliable script for automating that process though.

Also – have you configured the redirections.xml file (or something similar) for your FSLogix profile configurations? You can exclude certain paths from being saved in the profile (think temp locations or appdata cache). Helps keep some bloat down.
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/concepts-redirections-xml

This is an example of the “critical space” alert that I had. OS free space gets below a threshold, then runs an email follow up action using our SMTP server (which hits our ServiceNow ticket creation email > ServiceNow workflow generates ticket assigned to correct team), but that is where you could also add a script action step.

good stuff, thanks for sharing

Cc who may have more tips on this topic

Hi Mike,

AFAIK there is no way to run a “classical” logon/logoff script via ControlUp.
You, for sure, can setup a “User logged On”-Trigger and fire a script but I assume thats definetly not what you want to achieve.

In your case I would go the classical route via GPO or WEM (if its a Citrix shop) and use Aaron’s Profile Cleanup script:
stealthpuppy.com/fslogix/profilecleanup

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