When your infrastructure environment is configured to use mandatory profiles, you observe:

• The logon process is slow.
• Login screen gets stuck at Preparing for Desktop for exactly 30 seconds. 

This behavior is only seen when VDA is installed. If VDA is uninstalled and mandatory profiles are used; logon process is quick. 
With VDA installed even RDP login gets stuck at Preparing for Desktop

Caution! Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it.

When mandatory profiles are being used, create below registry key which would skip checking these folders: 

HKey_Current_User > Software > Citrix > WFSHELL
SpecialFoldersInitialized (Dword) with value of 1

We also recommend that you upgrade your VDA to 7.6.300 and then implement the above registry change.

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Problem Cause

The user local profile does not exist if we are using mandatory profiles. We still go through the registry and create the local folder in general (if registry in the solution section of this article is not set) which causing the delay of about 30 seconds.

Folders being loaded into registry are

•          %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow
•          %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries\Documents.library-ms
•          %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries\Music.library-ms 
•          %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries\Videos.library-ms
•          %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries\Pictures.library-ms

When using Mandatory Profiles, users experience a delay in the logon.