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Updated Optimization Scripts for Windows 7 Desktops in a VMware View Implementation

By Tina de Benedictis, End-User Computing, Technical Marketing

In a virtual desktop environment, optimizing desktops provides users with the best performance and reduces the load on virtual machine hosts and storage.  In the past, VMware has provided IT desktop administrators with scripts to optimize desktop images in a VMware View implementation.

With VMware View 5, we have added a user profile management feature: View Persona Management. This feature requires that you turn on the Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS), which was disabled in previous optimization scripts. We have enhanced the scripts in the VMware View Optimization Guide for Windows 7 so you can optimize desktops for a View 5 Persona Management implementation. Optimization scripts are now provided for desktops in a View implementation either with or without Persona Management. In addition, we provide a script to convert previously optimized Windows 7 View desktops so they are ready for Persona Management in View 5.

Details

The standard VMware script for optimizing Windows 7 desktops for View without Persona Management disables VSS and other non-essential services. However, View Persona Management relies on VSS, so you must enable it for a Persona Management implementation. For a View implementation with Persona Management, the Windows 7 desktop optimization script excludes these commands that disable VSS:

  Powershell Set-Service ‘VSS’ -startuptype “disabled”

  vssadmin delete shadows /All /Quiet

For Windows 7 desktops that you already optimized for View without Persona Management, you need to run a conversion script to make the desktops ready for Persona Management in View 5. This script sets the VSS service to automatically start.

For full details on Windows 7 desktop optimization for View, see:

VMware View Optimization Guide for Windows 7

For information on how to set up View Persona Management, see:

VMware View Persona Management Deployment Guide