AppVolumes with UEM slow logon times

[LukaszDziwisz]

Hello Everyone,

I know that this subject have been discussed many times already but I don't seem to be able to find a definitive answer and any help would be greatly appreciated. Here is the overview of our environment: Windows 10 LTSB (1607 build) optimized with VMware Optimization Tool, Horizon View 7.6, vSphere 6.7, AppVolumes 2.14.2.11, UEM 9.5.0.832, Instant Clones ( NVidia GPU Enabled) and no writable volumes, all flash Pure storage. Mounting only max 4 Appstacks per machine

Problem:

Logon time is between 55 to sometimes 80 seconds. Brand new user who logs in for the first time to this environment can login within 35-45 seconds. - Initially placed a call with VMware to help with logon time that was taking anywhere between 90-120 seconds and we were able to get it down by adding the following registry key in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\svservice\Parameters  VolDelayLoadTime REG_DWORD set to 15. What is does is that it delays attaching appstacks until after user is logged in. It shortened our logon time but the now for example if I pin some apps from appstack to the Start Menu it will not show up on next logon. All apps that reside on Master image stay just not the Apsstack ones which makes sense because those apps are showing later after logon.

Even though we shortened the logon time to roughly 60-70 seconds, it seems to me that we are still very slow ant trading off bad user experience with no ability to pin applications to start.

We are not using mandatory profiles but I'm thinking about creating one to test. Also, our image is joined to the domain whihc I don't think should cause issues with it.

When I watch the logon screen I see that "applying FlexEngine policy" is taking roughly 20-25 seconds and Preparing Windows takes another 20. Is this normal?

Does anybody here in the Community have like a guide or manual to successful Instant Clone build including the master image? I'm pretty sure that we followed all of the VMware guides but was wondering if someone might have something else that would be worth implementing to provide better logon times.

[Ray_handels]

Hey,

Yes, i'm afraid this is somewhat the default. Windows 10 in regards to windows 7 is much slower. Only 20 seconds for Preparing Windows is quite okay to be honest. We have the CB version and sometimes are looking at 40 seconds preparing windows.

You can try and tweak UEM a little bit more by adding the flexdebug log (you were also on the UEM forum right?) to see where you can gain some logon speed but if we only have a few UEM settings we are at about 20 seconds after clicking the desktop up until it starts with the dreadfull Preparing windows screen.Netting our logontime at and about 60 seconds.After a lot of testing and trying to get logon times down the only thing that I can say is that Appvolumes only adds about 3 seconds default and 1 second per appstack to the logontime. In your case about 7 seconds.

UEM taking 20 to 25 seconds does seem to be either too many settings or some setting that is causing this. You could use FlexEngine to import setting after logon, this could also bring down logon speeds..

[LukaszDziwisz]

That is exactly what I'm investigating right now in regards to Flexengine and checking why some apps are taking long time to import. I am using DirectFlex when applicable to save on logon time however some apps do not support it and I need to import config at the logon.

For the Appstack piece the biggest saving is that we are delaying the attachment until 15 seconds after logon takes place. If I was to remove that setting than my logon would increase drastically to about 80-90 seconds. The downside to it is that is I pin anything from the appstack to my start menu it doesn't persist on a next logon. Only the apps that are on Master image work with pinning.

[Dan__W]

Hi All,

We are using Horizon 7.4 with plenty of backend hardware and SSD storage.

Windows 10 1803

Default login times with UEM basic setup running and no App Volumes loaded is around 36 seconds.

Every app volume I add increases the login time by 10 seconds.

Add three app volumes, and login time is 67 seconds.

Add one app volume the login time is 46 seconds.

It seems the more app volumes added, the slower group policy settings and UEM settings are processed, and the longer the "preparing windows" phase is.

There is a margin of variation here though.

One particular 13GB app volume with 24 apps installed was adding 25 seconds to the login time.

Another particular 34GB app volume with 22 apps installed was adding 23 seconds to the login time.

Add both of these app volumes, and the login time increased by 43 seconds.

With these app volumes enabled, the group policy and UEM processing times were about as fast as any other singly mounted app volume, but the "preparing windows" phase was considerably longer.

The rest of the app volumes were only adding 10 seconds each, regardless of whether it was a single app at 30GB, or 15 apps at 2GB.

I will try the VolDelayLoadTime registry key to see how that affects things.

I hope this information is of help.

[jmatz135]

I find that if there are appstacks that I can apply to the computer instead of to the user it helps with the speed of those a bit, but obviously that restricts it to appstacks that are applied to everyone in a given pool.

Anyway, with a modified Win10 Vmware Optimization config on Windows 10 CB with mandatory profiles and a new user with my default UEM settings login will be about 20-25 seconds.  Add an appstack with any significant number of applications and that will jump to closer to 40 seconds.  Now once the user has used their machine for awhile and their UEM profile gets larger that then takes about 15-20 seconds which you really really need to look at what applications take a long time and try to reduce that to as little as possible.  Clearly though with appstacks and UEM you are looking at close to 60 seconds though.  90-120 seems long though.