VMware View Template Configuration

Update 2012–02–05: I wanted to update this post for a couple of reasons – first, this is one of my most popular posts on the site so I wanted to refresh it with up to date information for any reader that may come across it looking for information. Second, VMware has released a few tools since this post that make the process even easier. I wanted to document them in this post, therefore I did a complete re-write of this post

Optimizing the Windows 7 Virtual Machine

The first thing you will want to do is grab the PDF from VMware entitled: VMware View Optimization Guide for Windows 7, available here. If you are using anything other than Adobe Reader (in my case I was using Preview on a Mac) you may not realize there are actually scripts attached to the PDF file to automate the process for you. You can find the text of the scripts in the appendix, there are a few scripts – the one I used is if you are not using persona management. In my case I wasn’t, I was doing a manual pool and publishing a specific desktop for myself so I used the CommandsNoPersonaManagement.txt file, saved it to a .bat and ran it on the desktop I wanted to use in my pool. If you were creating linked clones you would run this on the desktop that you will be creating the replica from.

To give you an idea of how indepth this script is, the contents of NoPersonaManagement.txt are:

rem Use this script for desktops _without_ View Persona Management implemented.
rem Setting Default HKCU values by loading and modifying the default user registry hive
reg load "hku\temp" "%USERPROFILE%\..\Default User\NTUSER.DAT"
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop" /v SCRNSAVE.EXE /d "%windir%\system32\scrnsave.scr" /f
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop" /v ScreenSaveTimeOut /d "600" /f
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop" /v ScreenSaverIsSecure /d "1" /f
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" /v Wallpaper /d " " /f
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Cache" /v Persistent /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Microsoft\Feeds" /v SyncStatus /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "hku\temp\Software\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" /v HideSCAHealth /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1 /f
reg unload "hku\temp"

rem Making modifications to the HKLM hive
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v DisableFirstRunCustomize /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters" /v EnableSuperfetch /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v NoAutoUpdate /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore" /v DisableSR /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Disk" /v TimeOutValue /t REG_DWORD /d 200 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Image" /v Revision /t REG_SZ /d 1.0 /f

reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Image" /v Virtual /t REG_SZ /d Yes /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Application" /v MaxSize /t REG_DWORD /d 0x100000 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Application" /v Retention /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\NewNetworkWindowOff" /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\System" /v MaxSize /t

REG_DWORD /d 0x100000 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\System" /v Retention /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Security" /v MaxSize /t REG_DWORD /d 0x100000 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\eventlog\Security" /v Retention /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl" /v CrashDumpEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer" /v NoRecycleFiles /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" /v fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp" /v UserAuthentication /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system" /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0x0 /f
reg Add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Sideshow" /v Disabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0x1 /f

rem Using Powershell to perform Windows Services modifications
Powershell Set-Service 'BDESVC' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'wbengine' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'DPS' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'UxSms' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'Defragsvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'HomeGroupListener' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'HomeGroupProvider' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'iphlpsvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'MSiSCSI' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'swprv' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'CscService' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'SstpSvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'wscsvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'SSDPSRV' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'SysMain' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'TabletInputService' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'Themes' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'upnphost' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'VSS' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'SDRSVC' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'WinDefend' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'WerSvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'MpsSvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'ehRecvr' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'ehSched' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'WSearch' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'wuauserv' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'Wlansvc' -startuptype "disabled"
Powershell Set-Service 'WwanSvc' -startuptype "disabled"

rem Making miscellaneous modifications
bcdedit /set BOOTUX disabled
vssadmin delete shadows /All /Quiet
Powershell disable-computerrestore -drive c:\
netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state off
powercfg -H OFF
net stop "sysmain"
fsutil behavior set DisableLastAccess 1

rem Making modifications to Scheduled Tasks
schtasks /change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\Defrag\ScheduledDefrag" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\SystemRestore\SR" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\Registry\RegIdleBackup" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows Defender\MPIdleTask" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows Defender\MP Scheduled Scan" /Disable
schtasks /change /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\Maintenance\WinSAT" /Disable

The above is really meant to show the completeness of the script, rather than copying and pasting that I would use the script in the PDF referenced above in case of any updates or changes.

Additional Settings from Group Policy

The batch file above takes care of a lot of settings like disabling indexing on the drives, disabling disk defrag, and other services that consume unnecessary resources on the virtual desktop. I tweaked a few more things with the help of Group Policy. I’m running a forest level of 2008 R2 so be aware that if you are running a lower forest level, you might not have all these settings available. There are some settings that are specific to View Users and some settings that are specific to the View Desktops so I will break them out below. Keep in mind to apply these settings you will likely want an OU in your Active Directory that is dedicated to View Desktops and possibly one for View Users to help control where these settings are applied.

View Computer Policy

That covers the Computer Policy, basically it is forcing a no sounds scheme with a registry entry, controlling the size of the event logs, setting some PCoIP settings that require an .adm file and making sure that any View users are in the Remote Desktop Group on the View desktop.

View User Policy

And that’s it, it goes without saying but I would recommend testing these settings thoroughly before putting any of them into a production environment. If you have any other settings you use that I don’t have listed – I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

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