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Nicholas Dille of the German consulting services group Sepago, has recently published a white paper on the Citrix User Profile Manager. Aside from meeting the paper's primary goal of explaining a Citrix product, Nicholas effectively provides a quick start guide to understanding Windows Profiles that I feel many could benefit from reading.

The paper starts at the beginning, assuming that the reader has little to no previous experience, discussing the challenge of managing Windows Profiles in a multi-user environment. Section Two outlines the different types of profiles you will encounter in a quick and readable format and is followed by specific environmental conditions you may come across. Section Four goes on to explain the challenges that you are most likely to face i.e. 'Last Writer Wins', profile size, logon speed, and profile corruption.

While the above sections contain a large amount of useful information, more seasoned IT readers may want to skip to Section Five which discusses industry standard solutions from a vendor agnostic viewpoint. Sections Six and Seven make a solid case for the Citrix product as a real solution to the issues so carefully outlined in the aforementioned sections. Whether or not you are looking for a Windows Profile solution, this white paper contains a huge amount of useful information, especially for the novice. 
Access the white paper here