Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in Vmware Horizon 6 and Vmware Horizon Air Desktops and Vmware Horizon Air Apps
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Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon Air Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps VMware Horizon 6 Version 6.x, VMware Horizon Air Desktops Standard, VMware Horizon Air Desktops Advanced, VMware Horizon Air Desktops Enterprise, and VMware Horizon Air Apps TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon Air Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps Table of Contents Introduction . 4 VMware Operating System Optimization Tool . 4 Audience . 4 How This Guide Is Organized . 4 View in Horizon 6 . 5 Horizon Air Desktops and Horizon Air Apps . 5 Why Optimize? . 6 What Are You Optimizing?. 6 When Do You Optimize? . 6 VMware OS Optimization Tool . 7 Using the OSOT . 7 OSOT Features . 8 Tab Functions . 8 OSOT Template Choices . 8 OSOT Template Groups and Settings . 9 System Information . 12 Analysis Summary . 12 OSOT Optimization Pane .. 13 Road Map for Using the OSOT . 14 Best Practices . 14 Analyze a Master Image . 15 Apply Optimizations . 17 Review the Optimization Results . 20 Interpret the Analysis Summary . 20 Export Results . 21 View Optimization History . 22 Roll Back to the Pre-Optimized State of the Master Image . 23 View Rollback History . 24 Perform Remote Analysis of Master Images . 24 Customizing OSOT Built-In Templates . 25 Groups . 26 Add a Group . 26 Modify a Group . 27 Remove a Group . 28 TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER / 2 Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon Air Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps Steps . 29 Add or Modify Steps . 30 Remove Steps . 34 Change the Order of Steps . 34 Set the Operating System . 34 Delete a Custom Template . 35 Add Custom Templates to the Repository . 35 Windows 7 and Windows 8.x OS Optimizations . 36 Windows 7 and Windows 8.x Service Modifications . 36 Windows Optimizations Available Using Group Policy . 41 Windows 7 and Windows 8.x Optimizations Using the Registry . 43 Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012 OS Optimizations . 44 Windows Server Optimizations Using Group Policy . 44 Windows Server Optimizations Using the Registry . 45 SMB File Server Tuning . 46 Recommended General Windows Server Optimizations . 47 References . 48 About the Authors and Contributors . 49 Appendix A: Optimizations Reference . 50 Appendix B: Release Notes for the OSOT . 59 VMware OS Optimization Tool 2015. 59 VMware OS Optimization Tool 2014. 60 TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER / 3 Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon Air Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps Introduction This guide presents the ways to optimize virtual desktops and servers for View in VMware Horizon® 6 and for VMware Horizon Air™ Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps using the VMware Operating System Optimization Tool (OSOT). VMware Operating System Optimization Tool The free VMware OSOT makes it easy to apply configuration settings to virtual desktops and servers. It includes settings to optimize the following Windows operating systems for both desktops and servers that reside in the data center and in the cloud: • Windows 7 (for desktops) • Windows 8.x (for desktops) • Windows Server 2008 (including R2) • Windows Server 2012 (including R2) The OSOT optimizes RDSH servers for both View and Horizon Air. Both Horizon 6 and Horizon Air use the desktop and server optimizations that the OSOT can supply. Note: The optimization information in this guide pertains only to these Windows OS versions. It does not pertain to Windows XP, which Microsoft no longer supports. For more information, see the Windows XP Deployment Guide. Audience This guide is written for data center administrators and IT personnel who want to optimize Windows operating systems for View virtual desktops in Horizon 6 and for Horizon Air desktop and app environments. The guide assists you in working with the OSOT and provides an ongoing reference as you become a more proficient OSOT user. VMware will periodically update this document to reflect continuing enhancements to the OSOT and future releases of the Windows operating system. How This Guide Is Organized This guide is organized into the following sections: Introduction provides a brief description of the guide and its target audience, and summarizes the Horizon 6 and Horizon Air products. Why Optimize? explains why Microsoft Windows should be optimized for virtual machines for desktops and servers, the specific areas in the OS that you customize, and the benefits of doing so. VMware OS Optimization Tool presents an overview of the tool, the link to download it, and the steps to use it. Note: The section Road Map for Using the OSOT outlines the steps to perform an optimization. It is the quickest path to get started on the process. You can then use the other parts of this document as a reference when you have questions along the way. Windows 7 and Windows 8.x OS Optimizations provides details about the modifications that you can make to these versions of the operating system with the OSOT. Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012 R2 Server OS Optimizations provides details about the modifications that you can make to these versions of the operating system with the OSOT. References supplies additional sources of information. Appendix A (Customizations Reference) lists the values and settings for all items in all OSOT built-in templates. Appendix B (Release Notes for the OSOT) contains the latest changes and updates to the OSOT. TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER / 4 Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon Air Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps View in Horizon 6 View in Horizon 6 is a desktop virtualization solution that enables organizations to deliver virtualized or remote desktops and applications to end users through a single platform. The three Horizon 6 editions, VMware Horizon 6 Standard Edition, VMware Horizon 6 Advanced Edition, and VMware Horizon 6 Enterprise Edition, include View as their foundation. Each edition builds successively on the other so that Horizon 6 Advanced Edition is based on Horizon 6 Standard Edition with additional components and products, and Horizon 6 Enterprise Edition extends the capabilities of Horizon 6 Advanced Edition. For more information, see the VMware Horizon Pricing, Packaging, and Licensing white paper. Horizon Air Desktops and Horizon Air Apps Horizon Air Desktops and Horizon Air Apps provide virtual desktops and hosted apps as a cloud service, deploying and managing them in the cloud. Like the user experience in Horizon 6, users can securely access their desktops and apps from any device or browser. TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER / 5 Optimization Guide for Desktops and Servers in View in VMware Horizon 6 and VMware Horizon Air Desktops and VMware Horizon Air Apps Why Optimize? Windows was designed for physical hardware, specifically desktops, and for that hardware to be accessed by just one user at a time. Windows uses many resources to achieve a powerful PC, but many of these settings are unnecessary or even detrimental when applied to the virtual environment. These actions include, for example, animating windows as the user opens them. Performing this animation takes significant CPU resources, which decreases the number of desktops that you can host per VMware vSphere® server. Consequently, this nonessential function in a virtual machine (VM) environment increases the amount of system hardware that you need. Even if hardware is plentiful, Windows animations do not perform well when accessed remotely, especially when connecting over a slow WAN or Internet connection. Thus, keeping animations enabled (in addition to other unnecessary tasks for VMs) impairs the end-user experience. Another example of desktop optimization in a VM environment is to disable Windows Update so that control of the service is isolated to administrators. Administrators can run Windows Update in batch mode for the VMs as opposed to users performing this task, which they do in traditional Windows desktop environments. What Are You Optimizing? Using the recommendations provided in the OSOT, you are maximizing the efficiency and performance of your virtual desktops and RDSH servers. Note: The OSOT can also be used with standalone desktops, either virtual or physical, although the focus of this document is on the administration of master images. Optimizing virtual desktops • Increases virtual desktop performance • Increases virtual desktop density, boosting the number of virtual desktops that can be hosted per vSphere server, thereby reducing infrastructure costs • Improves the desktop experience for end users • Reduces desktop support because of fewer end-user calls to address Optimizing RDSH servers • Increases hosted desktop and application performance • Reduces the amount of system resources that each RDSH server requires • Increases the number of RDSH servers that can be hosted virtually on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 (RDSH server density) • Increases the number of users that can be supported per RDSH server • Improves the hosted desktop and application experience for end users • Reduces system support When Do You Optimize? The traditional approach to optimizing virtual desktops or RDSH servers is to use a main virtual machine that acts as a master image. You apply the optimizations to the master image, which is then used to create pools of desktops. You can also use the master image as a template to deploy multiple RDSH servers. Another type of optimization that