VMware Horizon – Setup Server 2016 Instant Clone Template – Optimize Windows

Release date: May 26th 2019

Welcome to my VMware Horizon series. In this sub-session I will describe how I optimized my Windows 2016 Server for Instant Clone usage.

After I finished installing applications and agents in my previous session, I’m now ready to optimize the template using, among other, VMware OS Optimization Tool. This can be downloaded from: https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool

I will also configure some local group-policies and do some optimization.

VMware OS Optimization Tool

When I start VMware OS Optimization Tools for the first time, I check for updates before I proceed. Updates are found under the Public Templates section:

Next, I’ll make a copy of the template I’m going to use, WindowsServer 2016 – Desktop, click “Copy and Edit”, I give a meaningful name, OK

I select my new template and change %USERPROFILE%\..\Default User\NTUSER.DAT to %USERPROFILE%\..\MANDATORY.V6\NTUSER.MAN.

Next, I analyze which recommended system optimizations to apply

Based on the recommendations from the optimization tool, I run “Optimize”.

Finally I reboot the VM after optimizations are done.

Local Group Policies:

Open Local Group Policies MMC

I edit the following options as follows:

Disk Cleanup

I start cleanmgr.exe from an administrative cmd-prompt and cleanup up before I run SDelete below

SDELETE

From an administrative cmd-prompt I run “sdelete64 -z c:”

Finally I run the following commands to finish up the template

That concludes my session about how I optimized my Windows 2016 Server RDS template. My next logical step will be to prepare the template for use with my instant clone pool, covered here: VMware Horizon – Setup Server 2016 Instant Clone Template – Prepare for deployment

Release date: May 26th 2019

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