How to use Exclaimer Cloud Signature Update Agent in a non-persistent Virtual Desktop environment – Exclaimer Cloud

Scenario

Users can access Outlook using a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution such as Citrix, VMware Horizon, NetApp, and so on.

(These environments are based on a golden image of the environment and changes made to the environment are non-persistent - unless changes are made to the golden image or a third party tool is used to maintain the user profile after the user ends the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment session)

You notice that the Exclaimer Cloud Signature Update Agent fails to update the signatures properly and the following warning is logged in the Windows Application Event Viewer logs:

ERROR: Signature update has failed. Address: example.user@example.com Status: DownloadedFromServer, Downloaded 1 signatures. System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures\<signature filename>' because it is being used by another process.

You may also see either part of the signature or the whole signature displayed in Microsoft Word.

Reason

Exclaimer Cloud Signature Update Agent access to signature files is known to be interrupted or blocked when user profile management tools are used in non-persistent environments.

Resolution

Please ensure version 1.14.21174.00001 or later of the Exclaimer Cloud Signature Update Agent is installed as the earlier releases used Microsoft Word API to update the signature files.

To prevent this issue from occurring, we recommend excluding the following path from any profile redirection being used:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Signatures