Desktop Operation System optimizations for XenDesktop and Provisioning Services: XP, Vista, Windows 7

First thanks to Paul Wilson for starting this process.

The outline of the process that I am following:

• Process
  
  • The sum of many small improvements will make the environment noticeably faster (hopefully). Machines need to boot, load OS, load default profile, start Desktop Service, then this shows the system as registered (idle) in the DDC console.
    
  • Speed up the boot process.
    
  • Make the system load faster. (system, .default profile)
    
  • Make the User profile load faster. (users' profiles)
    
  • Improve system response.
    
  • Overall system speed.
    
  • Analyze system response, tools to bench and view performance.
    
• XP
  
  • Speed up the boot process.
    
    • BIOS / VM Settings
      
      • PVS: Network is first boot option, unless BDM is used (then CDROM)
        
      • If private XenServer based storage is used make sure the VM is booting from the local disk first
        
    • Lower OS timeout values in boot.ini (or through msconfig)
      
      • 1 -3 seconds can still allow access to change options using this setting.
        
      • In physical having access to change these options is more relevant. In virtual or provisioned, we have access to mount these vDisks and can modify boot.ini directly if necessary. We also have the flexibility of snapshotting.
        
    • Disable GUI portions of boot.
      
      • Change the boot switch to /noguiboot, this can be used in conjunction with /fastdetect
        
    • Disable unused hardware (drivers) (possible list)
      
      • Firewire
        
      • Modem
        
      • MIDI
        
      • Multimedia: Game Controllers
        
      • PCMCIA
        
    • Remove Fonts
      
      • Create a FontsRemoved flder inside of c:\windows
        
      • Drag (move) fronts from the fonts folder to remove
        
      • Leave commonly used fonts:
        
        • Verdana
          
        • Arial
          
        • Trebuchet
          
        • Tahoma
          
        • Times New Roman
          
        • MS Sans Serif
          
    • Disable unused services
      
      • Here is a list I am testing now (disable these)
        
        • Background Intelligent Transfer Service
          
        • Distributed Link Tracking Client
          
        • Error Reporting Service
          
        • Fast User Switching
          
        • Help and Support
          
        • Indexing Service
          
        • Messenger
          
        • Machine Debug Manager
          
        • Network Location Awareness
          
        • Portable Media Serial Number Service
          
        • Remote Registry (might impact Group Policy and Troubleshooting, might take this off the list)
          
        • SSDP Discovery Service
          
        • Windows Image Acquisition
          
        • Wireless Zero Configuration
          
        • WebClient
          
        • Task Scheduler
          
    • Disk Defragmentation
      
      • Remove / se pagefile to none before defragmenting disk.
        
      • Mount disk on PVS or mount XS disk on another OS to defrag disk when files are not locked.
        
      • Create new bootable disk and copy files from your optimized disk to freshly formatted disk. (PVS disk creation sort of does this but I deed to verify the comparative defrag.)
        
      • Boot file defragmentation. Apparently Windows will do this every three days. It can't be forced but you can force idle tasks. Than can do this ahead of schedule. I think.
        
        • Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks
          
      • Possibly diskeeper or O@O defrag?    
        
  • Make the system load faster. (system, .default profile)
    
    • Stop auto startup programs
      
      • Msconfig
        
      • Autoruns (sysinternals) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
        
      • Realplayer
        
      • Messenger
        
    • Turn off sounds, logon music, sound profiles? (WAN performance improvements)
      
    • Delete system sound wav files.
      
    • NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate =1
      
    • NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation = 1
      
  • Make the User profile load faster. (users' profiles)
    
    • 
      
  • Improve system response.
    
    • Disable menu delay
      
    • MenuShowDelay =?
      
      • I like 0 but I have been wondering if in LAN connections som very small value like 50 or 100 to prevent the menus opening when sliding across them on the way to another menu.
        
    • Adjust for Best performance (where is this key does it exist in Policy templates already?)
      
  • 
    
  • Overall system speed.
    
    • Prefetcher for local apps.
      
      • Internet Explorer
        
      • HDX (ICA) Client
        
    • IE optimizations:
      
      • HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\
        
        • MaxConnectionsPerServer = 15
          
        • MaxConnectinsPer1_0Server 15
          
    • Firefox
      
      • About:config
        
        • Network.http.max-connections-per-server = 15
          
        • Network.http.pipelining = 15
          
        • Nglayout.initialpaint.delay = 0    
          
  • Analyze system response, tools to bench and view performance.
    
    • Analyse system response
      
      • Bootvis
        
      • Perfmon
        
    • Benchmarking
      
      • Sandra
        
      • CPU Arithmetic Benchmark
        
      • CPU Multimedia
        
      • Research other methods and tools
        
• Vista
  
  • Speed up the boot process.
    
    • BIOS / VM Settings
      
      • PVS: Network is first boot option, unless BDM is used (then CDROM)
        
      • If private XenServer based storage is used make sure the VM is booting from the local disk first
        
    • Lower OS timeout values in bcdedit (or through msconfig) (there is no more boot.ini and if there is it is ignored.)
      
      • 1 -3 seconds can still allow access to change options using this setting.
        
      • In physical having access to change these options is more relevant. In virtual or provisioned, we have access to mount these vDisks and can modify boot.ini directly if necessary. We also have the flexibility of snapshotting.
        
    • Bcdedit /enum all
      
      • Bcdedit /default (uid)
        
      • 
        
    • Disable GUI portions of boot.
      
      • Change the boot switch to /noguiboot, this can be used in conjunction with /fastdetect
        
      • This is done through msconfig as checkbox
        
    • Disable unused hardware (drivers) (possible list)
      
      • Firewire
        
      • Modem
        
      • MIDI
        
      • Multimedia: Game Controllers
        
      • PCMCIA
        
    • Remove Fonts
      
      • Create a FontsRemoved flder inside of c:\windows
        
      • Drag (move) fronts from the fonts folder to remove
        
      • Leave commonly used fonts:
        
        • Verdana
          
        • Arial
          
        • Trebuchet
          
        • Tahoma
          
        • Times New Roman
          
        • MS Sans Serif
          
    • Disable unused services
      
      • Here is a list I am testing now (disable these)
        
        • Application Experience
          
        • Application Information
          
        • Background Intelligent Transfer Service
          
        • Base Filtering Engine
          
        • Bluetooth
          
        • Desktop Windows Manager Session Manger
          
        • Distributed Link Tracking Client
          
        • Diagnostic Policy
          
        • Diagnostic System Host
          
        • EAP Host
          
        • Function Discover Provider Host
          
        • IKE and Auth IP IPSec Keying Modules
          
        • IP Helper
          
        • MultiMedia Class
          
        • Network Connections
          
        • Network List
          
        • Network Location Awareness
          
        • Offline Files
          
        • Protable Device Enumnerator
          
        • Routing and Remote access
          
        • Security Center
          
        • SSDP Discovery
          
        • Superfetch
          
        • Tablet PC input
          
        • Themes
          
        • Windows Defender
          
        • Windows Search
          
        • Windows Update
          
        • WinHTTP Web Proxy Autodiscovery
          
        • Error Reporting Service
          
        • Fast User Switching
          
        • Help and Support
          
        • Indexing Service
          
        • Messenger
          
        • Machine Debug Manager
          
        • Network Location Awareness
          
        • Portable Media Serial Number Service
          
        • Remote Registry (might impact Group Policy and Troubleshooting, might take this off the list)
          
        • SSDP Discovery Service
          
        • Windows Image Acquisition
          
        • Wireless Zero Configuration
          
        • WebClient
          
        • Task Scheduler
          
    • Disk Defragmentation
      
      • Remove / se pagefile to none before defragmenting disk.
        
      • Mount disk on PVS or mount XS disk on another OS to defrag disk when files are not locked.
        
      • Create new bootable disk and copy files from your optimized disk to freshly formatted disk. (PVS disk creation sort of does this but I deed to verify the comparative defrag.)
        
      • Boot file defragmentation. Apparently Windows will do this every three days. It can't be forced but you can force idle tasks. Than can do this ahead of schedule. I think.
        
        • Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks
          
      • Possibly diskeeper or O@O defrag?    
        
  • Make the system load faster. (system, .default profile)
    
    • Stop auto startup programs
      
      • Msconfig
        
      • Autoruns (sysinternals) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
        
      • Realplayer
        
      • Messenger
        
    • Turn off sounds, logon music, sound profiles? (WAN performance improvements)
      
    • Delete system sound wav files.
      
    • NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate =1
      
    • NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation = 1
      
  • Make the User profile load faster. (users' profiles)
    
    • 
      
  • Improve system response.
    
    • Disable menu delay
      
    • MenuShowDelay =?
      
      • I like 0 but I have been wondering if in LAN connections som very small value like 50 or 100 to prevent the menus opening when sliding across them on the way to another menu.
        
    • Adjust for Best performance (where is this key does it exist in Policy templates already?)
      
    • Disable Windows Vista Security Alerts
      
      • Security Center > Don't Notify me and don't display
        
      • Registry key?
        
    • Adjust NTFS memory allocation:
      
      • Fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2
        
      • Fsutil behavior set memoryusage 1
        
  • Overall system speed.
    
    • Prefetcher for local apps.
      
      • Internet Explorer
        
      • HDX (ICA) Client
        
    • IE optimizations:
      
      • HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\
        
        • MaxConnectionsPerServer = 15
          
        • MaxConnectinsPer1_0Server 15
          
    • Firefox
      
      • About:config
        
        • Network.http.max-connections-per-server = 15
          
        • Network.http.pipelining = 15
          
        • Nglayout.initialpaint.delay = 0
          
    • Disable unneeded protocols
      

      
       

  • Analyze system response, tools to bench and view performance.
    
    • Analyse system response
      
      • Reliability Monitor
        
      • Perfmon
        
      • Windows System Performance Rating
        
      • 
        
    • Benchmarking
      
      • PCMark05
        
      • Research other methods and tools
        
• Windows 7 (most that I have tried duplicate Vista tweaks)
  
  • Speed up the boot process.
    
    • BIOS / VM Settings
      
      • PVS: Network is first boot option, unless BDM is used (then CDROM)
        
      • If private XenServer based storage is used make sure the VM is booting from the local disk first
        
    • Lower OS timeout values in bcdedit (or through msconfig) (there is no more boot.ini and if there is it is ignored.)
      
      • 1 -3 seconds can still allow access to change options using this setting.
        
      • In physical having access to change these options is more relevant. In virtual or provisioned, we have access to mount these vDisks and can modify boot.ini directly if necessary. We also have the flexibility of snapshotting.
        
    • Bcdedit /enum all
      
      • Bcdedit /default (uid)
        
      • 
        
    • Disable GUI portions of boot.
      
      • Change the boot switch to /noguiboot, this can be used in conjunction with /fastdetect
        
      • This is done through msconfig as checkbox
        
    • Disable unused hardware (drivers) (possible list)
      
      • Firewire
        
      • Modem
        
      • MIDI
        
      • Multimedia: Game Controllers
        
      • PCMCIA
        
    • Remove Fonts
      
      • Create a FontsRemoved flder inside of c:\windows
        
      • Drag (move) fronts from the fonts folder to remove
        
      • Leave commonly used fonts:
        
        • Verdana
          
        • Arial
          
        • Trebuchet
          
        • Tahoma
          
        • Times New Roman
          
        • MS Sans Serif
          
    • Disable unused services
      
      • Here is a list I am testing now (disable these)
        
        • Application Experience
          
        • Application Information
          
        • Background Intelligent Transfer Service
          
        • Base Filtering Engine
          
        • Bluetooth
          
        • Desktop Windows Manager Session Manger
          
        • Distributed Link Tracking Client
          
        • Diagnostic Policy
          
        • Diagnostic System Host
          
        • EAP Host
          
        • Function Discover Provider Host
          
        • IKE and Auth IP IPSec Keying Modules
          
        • IP Helper
          
        • MultiMedia Class
          
        • Network Connections
          
        • Network List
          
        • Network Location Awareness
          
        • Offline Files
          
        • Protable Device Enumnerator
          
        • Routing and Remote access
          
        • Security Center
          
        • SSDP Discovery
          
        • Superfetch
          
        • Tablet PC input
          
        • Themes
          
        • Windows Defender
          
        • Windows Search
          
        • Windows Update
          
        • WinHTTP Web Proxy Autodiscovery
          
        • Error Reporting Service
          
        • Fast User Switching
          
        • Help and Support
          
        • Indexing Service
          
        • Messenger
          
        • Machine Debug Manager
          
        • Network Location Awareness
          
        • Portable Media Serial Number Service
          
        • Remote Registry (might impact Group Policy and Troubleshooting, might take this off the list)
          
        • SSDP Discovery Service
          
        • Windows Image Acquisition
          
        • Wireless Zero Configuration
          
        • WebClient
          
        • Task Scheduler
          
    • Disk Defragmentation
      
      • Remove / se pagefile to none before defragmenting disk.
        
      • Mount disk on PVS or mount XS disk on another OS to defrag disk when files are not locked.
        
      • Create new bootable disk and copy files from your optimized disk to freshly formatted disk. (PVS disk creation sort of does this but I deed to verify the comparative defrag.)
        
      • Boot file defragmentation. Apparently Windows will do this every three days. It can't be forced but you can force idle tasks. Than can do this ahead of schedule. I think.
        
        • Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks
          
      • Possibly diskeeper or O@O defrag?    
        
  • Make the system load faster. (system, .default profile)
    
    • Stop auto startup programs
      
      • Msconfig
        
      • Autoruns (sysinternals) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
        
      • Realplayer
        
      • Messenger
        
    • Turn off sounds, logon music, sound profiles? (WAN performance improvements)
      
    • Delete system sound wav files.
      
    • NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate =1
      
    • NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation = 1
      
  • Make the User profile load faster. (users' profiles)
    
    • 
      
  • Improve system response.
    
    • Disable menu delay
      
    • MenuShowDelay =?
      
      • I like 0 but I have been wondering if in LAN connections som very small value like 50 or 100 to prevent the menus opening when sliding across them on the way to another menu.
        
    • Adjust for Best performance (where is this key does it exist in Policy templates already?)
      
    • Disable Windows Vista Security Alerts
      
      • Security Center > Don't Notify me and don't display
        
      • Registry key?
        
    • Adjust NTFS memory allocation:
      
      • Fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2
        
      • Fsutil behavior set memoryusage 1
        
  • Overall system speed.
    
    • Prefetcher for local apps.
      
      • Internet Explorer
        
      • HDX (ICA) Client
        
    • IE optimizations:
      
      • HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\
        
        • MaxConnectionsPerServer = 15
          
        • MaxConnectinsPer1_0Server 15
          
    • Firefox
      
      • About:config
        
        • Network.http.max-connections-per-server = 15
          
        • Network.http.pipelining = 15
          
        • Nglayout.initialpaint.delay = 0
          
    • Disable unneeded protocols
      

      
       

  • Analyze system response, tools to bench and view performance.
    
    • Analyse system response
      
      • Reliability Monitor
        
      • Perfmon
        
      • Windows System Performance Rating
        
      • 
        
    • Benchmarking
      
      • PCMark05
        
      • Research other methods and tools
        

Citrix's Xen won't cede to VMware or Hyper-V

Citrix's Xen won't cede to VMware or Hyper-V: "Earlier this year, Citrix made a 20% price cut, Citrix's standard edition is $900 per server for up to four sockets, with support charged per incident. Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware charges $3,624 to $3,744 for a standard license, including support for a server with two sockets. In addition, VMware requires a $5,000 VirtualCenter server, which Citrix does not. At the high end, their prices are comparable: $5,750 for VMware compared with $5,000 for Citrix (which both include support). And of course, these figures pale in comparison with Hyper-V's near-free price at $28 per server."

Scouts' Electronicfest - formerly the Computer Swap Meet.

Scouts' Electronicfest - formerly the Computer Swap Meet.: "The Scouts' Computer Swap Meet is changing its name to the Scouts' Electronicfest. This name change will better represent our event, and it's growth from a computer event to that of an all-encompassing electronics event."

Scalr: The Auto-Scaling Open-Source Amazon EC2 Effort

Scalr: The Auto-Scaling Open-Source Amazon EC2 Effort

Since EC2 uses Xen as part of their platform this is interesting too:
Scalr is a recently open-sourced framework for managing the massive serving power of Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) service. While web services have been using EC2 for increased capacity since Fall 2006, it has never been fully “elastic” (scaling requires adding and configuring more machines when the situation arises). What Scalr promises is compelling: a “redundant, self-curing, and self-scaling” network, or a nearly self-sustainable site that could do normal traffic in the morning, and then get Buzz’d in the afternoon.

The Scalr framework is a series of server images, known dully in Amazon-land as Amazon Machine Images (AMI), for each of the basic website needs: an app server, a load balancer, and a database server. These AMIs come pre-built with a management suite that monitors the load and operating status of the various servers on the cloud. Scalr can increase / decrease capacity as demand fluctuates, as well as detecting and rebuilding improperly functioning instances. Scalr is also smart enough to know what type of scaling is necessary, but how well it will scale is still a fair question.

YouTube - zunePhone ad

YouTube - zunePhone ad