Windows services optimization

Activity that occurs during startup and thereafter until the next reboot is redirected to a temporary location. Users are usually provided network locations to store their data. In some cases, the user's profile is merged with the standard VM to provide the user with their settings.

One important aspect of non-persistent VDI that is based on a single image is servicing. Updates to the operating system and components are delivered usually once per month.

With image-based VDI, there is a set of processes that must be performed to get updates to the image:. This means the users are redirected to other VMs. The base image is then opened and started up. All maintenance activities are then performed, such as operating system updates,. NET updates, app updates, etc. Windows 10 performs a set of maintenance tasks, automatically, on a periodic basis.

There is a scheduled task that is set to run at AM every day by default. This scheduled task performs a list of tasks, including Windows Update cleanup. You can view all the categories of maintenance that take place automatically with this PowerShell command:.

One of the challenges with non-persistent VDI is that when a user logs off, nearly all the operating system activity is discarded. Therefore, optimizations intended for a Windows computer that saves state from one session to the next are not applicable. Indexing might be a partial waste of resources, as would be any disk optimizations such as a traditional defragmentation. If preparing an image using virtualization, and if connected to the Internet during image creation process, on first logon you should postpone Feature Updates by going to Settings , Windows Update.

Windows 10 has a built-in capability called the System Preparation Tool , often abbreviated to "Sysprep". The Sysprep tool is used to prepare a customized Windows 10 image for duplication. The Sysprep process assures the resulting operating system is properly unique to run in production. There are reasons for and against running Sysprep.

In the case of VDI, you might want the ability to customize the default user profile which would be used as the profile template for subsequent users that log on using this image. You might have apps that you want installed, but also able to control per-app settings. The alternative is to use a standard.

ISO to install from, possibly using an unattended installation answer file, and a task sequence to install applications or remove applications. Anytime that Windows defaults are changed, questions arise regarding supportability. Once a VDI image VM or session is customized, every change made to the image needs to be tracked in a change log. At troubleshooting, often an image can be isolated in a pool and configured for problem analysis.

Once a problem has been tracked to the root cause, that change can then be rolled out to the test environment first, and ultimately to the production workload. This document intentionally avoids touching system services, policies, or tasks that affect security. After that comes Windows servicing. The ability to service VDI images outside of maintenance windows is removed, as maintenance windows are when most servicing events take place in VDI environments, except for security software updates.

Consider supportability when altering default Windows settings. Difficult problems can arise when altering system services, policies, or scheduled tasks, in the name of hardening, "lightening", etc.

Consult the Microsoft Knowledge Base for current known issues regarding altered default settings. The guidance in this document, and the associated script on GitHub will be maintained with regards to known issues, if any arise.

In addition, you can report issues in several ways to Microsoft. You can use your favorite search engine with the terms ""start value" site:support. You might note that this document and the associated scripts on GitHub do not modify any default permissions. If you are interested in increasing your security settings, start with the project known as AaronLocker.

For more information, see "AaronLocker" overview. One of the goals of a VDI image is to be as light as possible. One way to reduce the size of the image is to remove UWP applications that won't be used in the environment. With UWP apps, there are the main application files, also known as the payload.

There is a small amount of data stored in each user's profile for application specific settings. There is also a small amount of data in the 'All Users' profile. Connectivity and timing are important factors when it comes to UWP app cleanup. If you deploy your base image to a device with no network connectivity, Windows 10 can't connect to the Microsoft Store and download apps and try to install them while you are trying to uninstall them.

This might be a good strategy to allow you time to customize your image, and then update what remains at a later stage of the image creation process. If you modify your base. WIM before you install, the apps won't be installed to begin with and your profile creation times will be shorter. Later in this section there is information on how to remove UWP apps from your installation. WIM file. A good strategy for VDI is to provision the apps you want in the base image, then limit or block access to the Microsoft Store afterward.

Store apps are updated periodically in the background on normal computers. The UWP apps can be updated during the maintenance window when other updates are applied. For more information see Universal Windows Platform Apps. UWP apps that are not needed are still in the file system consuming a small amount of disk space. For apps that will never be needed, the payload of unwanted UWP apps can be removed from the base image using PowerShell commands.

In fact, if you remove those from the installation. WIM file using the links provided later in this section, you should be able to start from the beginning with a very slim list of UWP apps. Run the following command to enumerate provisioned UWP apps from a running operating system, as in this truncated example output from PowerShell:.

UWP apps that are provisioned to a system can be removed during operating system installation as part of a task sequence, or later after the operating system is installed.

This might be the preferred method because it makes the overall process of creating or maintaining an image modular. Once you develop the scripts, if something changes in a subsequent build, you edit an existing script rather than repeat the process from scratch.

Here are some links to information on this topic:. Removing Windows 10 in-box apps during a task sequence. Windows 10 Keeping apps from coming back when deploying the feature update. Each UWP app should be evaluated for applicability in each unique environment.

You'll want to install a default installation of Windows 10 , then note which apps are running and consuming memory. For example, you might want to consider removing apps that start automatically, or apps that automatically display information on the Start Menu, such as Weather and News that might not be of use in your environment.

If utilizing the scripts from GitHub, you can easily control which apps are removed before running the script. After downloading the script files, locate the file 'AppxPackages. See the section Customization for details. For more information, see the Windows Server powershell forum. To enumerate currently installed Windows Features, run the following PowerShell command:.

Next, you might want to remove the Windows Media Player package. There are two Windows Media Player packages in Windows 10 You can use the built-in Dism.

A Dism. The Windows technology involved is called Features on Demand. Any settings made to this file will be applied to any subsequent user profiles created from a device running this image. You can control which settings to apply to the default user profile, by editing the file 'DefaultUserSettings. One setting that you might want to consider carefully, new to this iteration of settings recommendations, is a setting called TaskbarSmallIcons.

You might want to check with your user base before implementing this setting. TaskbarSmallIcons makes the Windows Task Bar smaller and consumes less screen space, makes the icons more compact, minimizes the Search interface, and is depicted before and after in the following illustrations:. Also, to reduce the transmitting of images over the VDI infrastructure, you can set the default background to a solid color instead of the default Windows 10 image.

You can also set the logon screen to be a solid color, as well as turn off the opaque blurring effect on logon. The following settings are applied to the default user profile registry hive, mainly in order to reduce animations. If some or all of these settings are not desired, delete the settings not to be applied to the new user profiles based on this image. The goal with these settings is to enable the following equivalent settings:. For Windows 10, version , the following are the optimization settings applied to the default user profile registry hive to optimize performance:.

In the local policy settings, you might want to disable images for backgrounds in VDI. If you do want images, you might want to create custom background images at a reduced color depth to limit network bandwidth used for transmitting image information.

If you decide to specify no background image in local policy, you might want to set the background color before setting local policy, because once the policy is set, the user has no way to change the background color. It might be better to specify " null " as the background image. There is another policy setting in the next section on not using background over Remote Desktop Protocol sessions. If the equivalent settings are not specified in any other way, such as group policy, the settings would still apply.

The following settings were chosen to not counter or conflict with any setting that has anything to do with security. Most Active Hubs Microsoft Teams. Security, Compliance and Identity. Microsoft Edge Insider. Azure Databases. Autonomous Systems. Education Sector.

Microsoft Localization. Microsoft PnP. Healthcare and Life Sciences. Internet of Things IoT. Enabling Remote Work. Small and Medium Business. Humans of IT. Green Tech. MVP Award Program. Video Hub Azure. Microsoft Business.

Microsoft Enterprise. Browse All Community Hubs. Turn on suggestions. Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. Showing results for.

Show only Search instead for. Did you mean:. Sign In. Windows The Optimization and Performance Improvements. Failed to load latest commit information.

Added Chinese language support. Dec 12, Oct 6, Nov 20, Updated to 3. Sep 26, Update FEED. Nov 16, Optimize Drives changed from Disabled to Manual by default. Spatial Data Service is new. Tile Data model server changed from Automatic to Manual by default. WarpJITSvc is new. Windows Firewall renamed to Windows Defender Firewall. Windows Perception Service is new. Windows Store Install Service is new. Xbox Game Monitoring is new. AssignedAccessManager Service is new.

Not available for Windows 10 Home. Bluetooth Audio Gateway Service is new. Bluetooth Handsfree Service is removed. HomeGroup Listener is removed. HomeGroup Provider is removed. Parental Controls is new. System Guard Runtime Monitor Broker is new. Tile Data model server is removed. Windows PushToInstall Service is new. Windows Update Medic Service is new. Xbox Game Monitoring changed from cannot be disabled to have the ability to be disabled.

Table Header Information The columns can be sorted. Select the column header to sort by that field.