Windows & Interoperability: Optimizing Windows 7 for VDI

Optimizing Windows 7 for VDI

by Cameron Sturdevant

Dumping Hardware

Removing unneeded virtual hardware is a good way to reduce the virtual footprint of the golden virtual image.

Mute

Remove sounds from VM master images unless they are required to support user workload.

Silence UAC

Depending on the end-user workload, there should be no need for user account control notification, since the user won't be able to install applications.

Dont Protect

System Protection settings are appropriate and necessary in a traditional desktop environment but wasteful and unhelpful in a VDI deployment.

Visual Effects

Plain trumps pretty when configuring Windows 7 for prime performance in a VDI environment.

No Maintenance

Disable and turn off any "routine" services provided by the Windows 7 operating system to improve VDI performance.

WinSAT

Disable the WinSAT service, which measures system performance and capabilities to provide the score sometimes used to judge a system readiness to run Windows 7.

No Windows Defender

Disabling this service means that IT managers must implement additional security in the virtual environment.

No IPv6

Disabling unnecessary network services and protocols saves CPU cycles and can "ungum" VM performance.