VMware Flings recently announced a utility that should/must be in the toolkit of every one involved with managing a virtual desktop infrastructure. It is called VMware OS Optimizer and helps optimize Windows 7/8/2008/2012/10 systems for use with VMware Horizon View. The optimization tool includes customizable templates to enable or disable Windows system services and features, per VMware recommendations and best practices. Since most Windows system services are enabled by default, the optimization tool can be used to easily disable unnecessary services and features to improve performance.
The Why
The focus of the tool is ensuring that the desktop base image is as optimized as possible to stop most services VMware thought as optional or causing unnecessary resource utilization on the desktop. Anyone who has managed a VDI back-end environment will attest to the resource optimization per VDI VM and the net effect on the overall consumption at the host and cluster level. It ultimately will decide your consolidation ratio or the amount of virtual desktop images you can run per physical server and in turn your ROI.
If this was not sufficient LoginVSI (One of the leading and reputed provider of VDI performance testing software) recently performed testing on optimized vs non optimized versions and their results show a 44% increase in VSImax score for the optimized Windows 10 desktops.
The How
Running the tool is fairly straightforward.
1. Download the tool
2. Extract the compressed file and run the executable on the desktop or server operating system that you want to optimize
3. Run the tool in Analyze mode and identify the areas that it can potentially optimize as shown in the screenshot below
4. Based on your (and your end users') needs adjust the settings as necessary since ratcheting all the settings down might not be desired for your environment
5. Click on Optimize to optimize the guest OS image. Then the tool gets to work and makes the modifications for the suggestions of analysis
6. Upon completion you should observe the analysis summary window on top and appreciate the reduced overhead!
Final Note
The utility of OS Optimization Tool will not be just limited to VMware deployments. I own a 3 year old Dell notebook that was upgraded to Windows 10 last year. It was constantly huffing and puffing with near constant disk activity LED flashing and not the least the performance was degraded. Post applying the optimizations it definitely is running much more smoother. So whether you are a VMware shop or affiliated with Citrix or Microsoft in virtual or physical desktop world, this tool can automate and enhance your user experience.
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