(Azure) Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool now available
Optimizing images has always been an important component of preparing images as part of a traditional Remote Desktop Services (RDS) infrastructure or virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Optimizing session hosts, in particular, can increase user density and eventually lower costs. With the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool, you can optimize your Windows 10, version 2004 multi- and single-session deployments in Windows Virtual Desktop. Note: The information in this post is community-driven; nothing has yet been officially launched by the Windows Virtual Desktop product team. Credit goes to Robert M. Smith and Tim Muessig from Microsoft, previously known as the VDIGuys, for creating this tool and make it available for free for the community. Windows 10 multi-session image name change As noted in recent announcements, Office 365 ProPlus is now Microsoft 365 apps for Enterprise. With this name change, we have updated the Windows Virtual Desktop image names in Azure Marketplace. As a result, when you are looking for an image in the Azure Marketplace image gallery, you should begin by selecting Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, version 2004 + Microsoft 365 Apps – Gen1 as your baseline image. How the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool works The (Windows) Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool disables services in the operating system that you most likely won’t need for your Windows Virtual Desktop session host. To make sure that your line-of-business (LOB) applications continue running as they should, there are some preliminary steps that should first performed. Note: There are settings default disabled when you run the scrip out of the box such as AppX Packages for the Windows Calculator. We strongly suggest analyzing the tool via the JSON files that include the default settings. This also gives you the opportunity to enable them before running the tool so they remain untouched. I'll explain more about this later on in the article. The full list of enhancements for native Windows services will be available soon. Bookmark Run and tune your Remote Desktop Services environment for the latest updates. Expected performance gains Windows Virtual Desktop value-added services provider and Microsoft partner LoginVSI performed early tests with the Virtual Desktop Optimization Too and gained over 100 users in their internal benchmarking lab environment with a Windows 10, version 2004 single session. We, therefore, assume that this gain will also be possible with Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session. VSImax asserts a maximum number of users that are able to log on to the virtual desktop hosts pool as part of the underlying infrastructure. That number is the "sweet spot" as going over that number will decrease performance for all users. (Thanks to LoginVSI for sharing these results with us.) Note: We recommend you use simulation tools to test your deployment using both stress tests and real-life usage simulations to ensure that your system is responsive and resilient enough to meet user needs Remember to vary the load size to avoid surprises. Desktops in the Cloud on Performance Optimizations for Windows Virtual Desktop with Robert and Tim (aka VDI Guys) We recently had the creators of the Virtual Desktop Optimization tool as guests on our Desktops in the Cloud video-podcast. Robert and Tim explained everything you should know, as well as best practices and lessons learned. A must watch in extension to this article. Watch it below. How to use the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool The Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool makes it possible to disable uncommon services for virtual desktop environments, such as Windows Virtual Desktop. Note: We recommend that you run the script after the Sysprep (System Preparation) process, most likely as startup script w with a large set of virtual machines. This is due to the AppX Packages that conflict and most likely the sysprep will fail. Download all scripts from the Virtual-Desktop-Optimization-Tool GitHub repository. Select Clone or download, followed by Download ZIP. Unzip the folder to your Windows Virtual Desktop session host(s) to a specified folder (e.g. C:\Optimize or C:\Temp). Note: You could also run the scripts as part of your image management procedure e.g. Azure image Builder (AIB) or Azure DevOps. Important information before running the tool There are settings default disabled when you run the scrip out of the box such as AppX Packages for the Windows Calculator. We strongly suggest analyzing the tool via the JSON files that include the default settings. This also gives you the opportunity to enable them before running the tool so they remain untouched. You can find the JSON file in the Windows built number folder, under ConfigurationFiles - e.g. C:\Optimize\2004\ConfigurationFiles. You've to put the settings to Enabled - that you want to keep as default. Below is the example file for AppX Packages, there are JSON files for Services and scheduled tasks as well. Another option is to remove the while entry out of the JSON file. AppxPackages.json - Example Windows Calculator App { "AppxPackage": "Microsoft.WindowsCalculator", "VDIState": "Enabled", "URL": "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-calculator/9wzdncrfhvn5", "Description": "Microsoft Calculator app" }, Services.json - example Windows Update Service { "Name": "UsoSvc", "VDIState": "Enabled", "Description": "Update Orchestrator service, manages Windows Updates. If stopped, your devices will not be able to download and install the latest updates." }, Prepare to launch Windows PowerShell and select Run as Administrator. In PowerShell, change the directory to the folder to which you downloaded the scripts, e.g. C:\Optimize or your own specific folder. Run the following command: Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass Run the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool using the following command: .\Win10_VirtualDesktop_Optimize.ps1 -WindowsVersion 2004 -Verbose Note: When you use a different version of Windows 10, you must change the WindowsVersion parameter. Version 1803 and later are supported for Windows 10 Enterprise. Windows 10 multi-session support is only available with Windows 10, version 2004 and later. Select Yes when prompted to reboot the session hosts(s). Start your Windows Virtual Desktop session. As you can see in the Task Manager comparison below, the number of threads and handles has decreased noticeably after running the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool. Do you have any problems with orphaned Start Menu shortcuts after running the tool? Have the user open Task Manager, then end the following two processes: ShellExperienceHost.exe StartMenuExperienceHost.exe Have them check the Start Menu and they should be gone. Happy optimizing! 🙂 Let us know your feedback on the tool in the comment section below. Prefer to watch and learn? There’s also a video on Azure Academy available later this week by Dean Cefola. You can find it here.
Windows Server 2022 and FSLogix profile roaming problems
Hello! Recently I've been tasked with enabling profile roaming between two Windows Server 2022 hosts, which are added to the same collection. Both of them are hosting internal developed app. After enabling fslogix on one of them, I've encountered some errors, users getting blocked from logging in. Those are the errors users are getting when trying to log in into the host that uses FSlogix: 1) Failed to acquire mutex for user: EXAMPLE-USER 2) Failed to acquired cleanup session registry lock for user EXAMPLE-USER (SID=S-1-5-21-1715567821-2139871995-725345543-32785) (Elapsed time: 60000) (The wait operation timed out.) User is from different domain that has Forest trust type set to Transitive. We have multiple domains accessing this VM and users from all of them are having the same problems when fslogix enabled on it. User has access to both VM and Azure Storage Account File share when profiles are being saved (both SMB and on Azure portal access) FSLogix policy is set like this: Policy Setting Comment Delete local profile when FSLogix Profile should apply Enabled Policy Enabled Enabled Policy Setting Comment Set Outlook cached mode on successful container attach Disabled Size in MBs Enabled Size in MBs 10000 Policy Setting Comment VHD location Enabled VHD location \\<example>.file.core.windows.net\profiles FSLogix/Profile Containers/Advancedhide Policy Setting Comment Keep local folder after user logs out Disabled Locked VHD retry count Enabled Locked VHD retry count 3 Policy Setting Comment Locked VHD retry interval Enabled Locked VHD retry interval 5 Policy Setting Comment Prevent login with failure Enabled Policy Setting Comment Prevent login with temporary profile Enabled Policy Setting Comment Redirect temporary file folders to local computer Enabled Redirect TEMP, TMP and INetCache to local drive Policy Setting Comment Remove Orphaned OST Files On Logoff Enabled FSLogix/Profile Containers/Container and Directory Naminghide Policy Setting Comment Swap directory name components Enabled Policy Setting Comment Virtual disk type Enabled VHDX Any ideas how to solve it or what might have caused it?
RDS web client thumbprint does not match
A well known and very frustrating problem exists with the RDS web client. Every year when our certificates renew we need to clear the cache of every user in order for the new certificates to become valid. PLEASE can MS update the cache control on the web client html pages and stop it from caching the cert values It is raised in lots of places including here Remote Desktop Web Access HTML5 certificate error after replacing - Page 2 - Microsoft Community Hub Please fix it
Turn off Remote Desktop Webclient auto-translate or enforce specific language
I would like a toggle for the auto-translate function for the webclient. I believe it currently determines the "preferred" language based on Browser settings and translates the site and connection (including the virtual drive name). We discovered this behavior during troubleshooting when something expecting en-us had stopped working due to being translated. Being able to turn off the automatic translation, or perhaps even enforce a particular language, would be an excellent feature.Windows Virtual Desktop - Server 2019 (version 1809) with proper RDS CALS - RDSH getting 120 days
So we have a WVD in Azure with server 2019 instead of win10 evd ( it's multitenant deployment), with a licensing server but every RDSH gets a 120 days grace period no matter what we do. We keep having to reset the grace period or the hosts simply stop accepting RDS connections, even via bastion. Any thoughts?Teams bandwith in an VDI environment
We offered a Microsoft Azure Stack HCI solution as a talking point to a customer with with 9 branches. They want (now with thin clients) with +/- 70 CCU via RDS to use office 365, sharepoint, an application in which building materials can be viewed in 3d and Teams Teams in particular has caused quite a few problems in the testing process because all teams run session through the RDS hosts and thus have to share the bandwidth, and that performs to cry. That is why it is thought to switch to FAT Customers to run teams locally with local bandwidth. Now the end user has also stated that they stand for VDI, and that is all possible according to Microsoft, but I expect that this will require a lot more computing power and that men will have the same challenge that all teams will have to share the bandwidth of the hosts session. If you then switch to FAT customers in order to solve the team problem, VDI does not have many advantages anymore, I think. Alle suggestions and help is appreciated. So the questions are, - should we suggest to them to stay with thin clients or change to fat clients. - what can we do to improve their thinclient / TEAMS experience?
WVD Publish individual apps to sessions
I've created a custom image with our line of business applications in Azure WVD. MSIX AppAttach looks perfect for publishing additional individual apps (eg Photoshop or VSCode) but isn't available yet (public preview closed too). Is the only way to create a new image with all the apps installed then publish them as RDS apps? Will they need to go to the RDWeb url inside the the WVD? Is there a better way?
