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Export all user customizations in ArcGIS Desktop to a single importable file

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03-21-2016 01:02 PM
Status: Open
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SteveRodriguez
by
New Contributor III

This tool may exist but we have a challenge when using ArcGIS Desktop in a VDI environment.  Unlike a normal desktop upgrade which can read in and recycle your customizations to ArcGIS(things like your server connections, basically everything in ArcCatalog, your default templates, etc), a VDI upgrade essentially removes the old version of ArcGIS desktop, including all these files, and replaces it with a new, freshly installed version.  At least ours does.  This requires the user to recreate all their folder connecitons, server connections, everything.  Just like you have a fresh install.

It would be great if you had a utility that would scour all of these custom files for the user and package it into a single file, maybe even an executable, and save it to the desktop.  Then, when we refreshed the users's VDI desktop to have the latest version, the user would click this package and it would redeploy itself into the new environment. 

This would make it very easy to quickly deploy the latest and greatest Desktop version without the user community grumbling over having to reconifgure their desktop environment every time. Going from 10.4 to 10.4.1 or 10.4.2 will be a major undertaking in our environment. 

As an added bonus, system administrators could create a default package including MXT files, custom toolbars, and server connections that could be easily deployed for every user.