Monday, March 26, 2012

VMware VIEW - Optimizing Windows 7

A question I often get when doing a VMware VIEW implementation is "What should I do to my Windows 7 image to optimize it for use over the LAN/WAN?". My response is usually to follow the Windows 7 optimization guide for VMware VIEW. Before we get into it to much below is a link to the document;

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-View-OptimizationGuideWindows7-EN.pdf

I must admit the first time I had used this document I skipped right over the "About this Guide" section to try and get right into the meat of things. Please don't make the same mistake I did, take a look at that section, there is invaluable information in it. They lay out a process for installation of the VIEW agents and implementation of the scripts.

When you open the link above you may be wondering where to find the script files. Many of us use an alternative browser like Google Chrome, which has a built in PDF viewer of sorts. The downside of this is when we open a guide like we're discussing here we may not see the attachments on the PDF. For this reason be sure to download the guide and open it with Adobe Reader. You should see something similar to below with an attachment window on the side bar.


You'll notice there are three scripts. The difference between them is related to VMware VIEW profile management, below is there function and how it relates to profile management;

1. CommandsDesktopsReadyForPersonaManagement.txt - Use this script for any parent image you have previously run the "CommandsNoPersonManagement.txt" script on, but would now like to use Persona Managment on.

2. CommandsNoPersonaManagement.txt - Use this script for any parent image you would like to use WITHOUT VIEW Persona Management

3. CommandsPersonaManagement.txt - Use this script for any parent image you would like to use with VIEW Persona Management

The big difference between these scripts is really two services that are either left on for using persona management, or turned off if you are not planning on using persona management.

Basically what you want to do here is save the attachments on the PDF to hard disk and rename them to *.bat. This will turn them into valid batch files for execution on your parent machines. One thing I would highly recommend is to run them in a command windows that you open(as administrator). If you just double click them the commands will run and then the command window will close. If you open a command window, browse to the directory where the batch files are located, and run the appropriate one, the script will execute, but the windows will remain open, and you can analyze which commands were successful and which were not. This allows for better troubleshooting.

-Brad

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