"Preparing Windows" takes a long time...

[burgerking68]

Hello, under Windows 10 1909 it takes a long time to log in to our VDI environment (Horizon 7.8 with DEM 9.9) on all types of machines (persistent but also instant clone). It is striking that the user login remains at the point "Windows is being prepared" for a particularly long time. (Depending on the user, up to 60 seconds) However, if the same DEM user then logs on to a Windows 2019 server machine with DEM, the registration also goes very quickly under "Preparing Windows". Can someone tell me what the reason may be or which logs I have to evaluate in order to learn the things that are created in the "Preparing Windows" profile,?

I would be grateful if someone could explain these performance problems between Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 as a VDI environment to me !? Thanks for that!

Our environment:
VMWare ESX 6.5 SP2, VMWare Horizon 7.8, DEM 9.9, PCoiP, Windows 10 1909 as guest machines

[sjesse]

First I'd try removing DEM in a test pool and see if its quicker, that way you know what component is slowing it down. If its Dem, I suggest moving this to that forum so someone like DEMdev​ can see it. I'd also look at the gpos provided with 9.9 , there are performance logging you can enable. I can't find the gpo version, but the no ad version is here

VMware Knowledge Base

also I just found this kb, look at the flexengine log, and see where its slowing down.

Working with VMware Dynamic Environment Manager Logs

Compare logs from a window 10 login attempt and 2019 login attemp and see whats different, you may have something running in windows 10 that you don't in 2019.

[Ray_handels]

If you are using DEM my guess is that you are using non persistent machines, right?

In the Windows is preparing part of the logon process it normally is one of 2 things that cause this,.

1. A lot of GPO settings that are being applied, mostly preference mode policies. If possible only set machine GPO's in Windows policies and all other policies and user settings should be done by DEM.

2. Do you happen to have a lot of W10 modern apps? What do you see when you type in the command get-appxprovisonedpackage. When logging in for the first time (which is every time if you are using a non persistent machine) all windows modern apps are being installed into the profile.

Looking at DEM, you could check the logon monitor or the log file itself (if you create one during logon) to see how long DEM is doing actions. These actions normally are being done before the preparing windows. Also you could try and enable verbose logging during logon.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/325376/how-to-enable-verbose-startup-shutdown-logon-and-log...

[dbrutus]

Hi, how long have you been using 1909 now? Reason I asked is "1909" became officially supported on Horizon 7.10.

[mchadwick19]

On top of this - to dig into the DEM logs under a DEM user profile create a "FlexDebug.txt" file. This will tell DEM to enable debug logging when that particular user logs into a view desktop.

[Techstarts]

I have a similar problem.

I have enabled this registry key.

REG ADD "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" /v verbosestatus /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

It confirms that GP is applied within seconds.

But it comes "Preparing screen" and wait for no less than 30-45 seconds.

[alex17pat]

I have fixed my problem by turning fast startup off.