Login Times with AppVol

[Super6VCA]

It appears that this topic has been talked about but i would like to ask yet again.  Our environment is rather simple and I can't believe login times are what they are.  We are running Appvol 4.4, DEM2103 adn View 7.13.  There are a couiple issues with this so hang in there.  Issue 1

With Appvol in play (writable Vol only) login time from start to finish about 60 seconds.  With no writable volume assigned the login speed goes down to about 35second.   We use DEM for some simple items but primarily for Office installation OST file location.

This brings me to Issue 2.  It seems that the longer a user has a writable volume the longer the login times are.  Example,  After a few weeks of a user having same volume the login time exceeds 3 minutes.  Very frustrating for users and me of course.  

The desktop was built using the webpage https://techzone.vmware.com/manually-creating-optimized-windows-images-vmware-horizon-vms 

The master image loads to a windows desktop in about 7 seconds.  The login monitor shows login time that do not really match the actual speed (total login time of 27.23 seconds = 50 second login time.    If any one has any thoughts on how to get over this i would certainly appreciate it.     Thanks again!

[FlowDE]

Hey,

the Question is do you really need the Writable-Volume?

Greetings

JT

[Micheal_A]

@Super6VCA 

Why are you using UWV?

Are these IC Desktop Pools your using?

Best practice is to not use UWV for IC Desktop Pools. UWV are mostly used for Developement and IT teams with dedicated VMs.

[Super6VCA]

The reason we use writable volumes simply for saving the user settings.  Seems to be the easiest solution

[sjesse]

I'm still looking into this my self, but alot of people say fslogix containers are quicker, I just haven't had time to test.

[Micheal_A]

You should be using DEM for the User Profile personalization and environment configurations.

We test 25 AppVol packages mounted and get about 25 second login (ready to use desktop). This is with AppVol and DEM configured.

In the field, I usually can get clients logins between 15 and 45 seconds. Just depends on your VDI environment.

P.S. Most clients use fslogix for Outlook only, when using Horizon Suite (Horizon, AppVol, and DEM...)

[FlowDE]

We never used Writable Volumes, most of it is redirected or captured whit DEM but FSlogix will be tested in the future also look into the logintimes of DEM there is a lot things which are not necessary which take a lot of time.

Greetings

JT

[Super6VCA]

Ran into issues with DEM since we use folder redirection in our environment.  We redirect desktops and user folders and the boss doesn't want to reconstruct the entire system for 100 users and 50 desktops.  

[sjesse]

I love DEM, but the issue is if you don't profile everything you need to fall back to folder redirection which is also slow and problematic in some cases.

[Micheal_A]

You do not need to reconstruct your redirections.

Just use DEM for the the things that need to be captured.

As others here are stating, DEM is 10 times faster and with improve your login times.

DEM will reduce a lot of the users configurations from login time to application launch time.

You would still use folder redirection for user files.

[Super6VCA]

We have a writable Vol for Outlook OST file as well plus We have a lot of apps that our doctors use that require passwords.  They are usually saved to appdata or program data on the initial login then not required after that.  They hate always putting in the PW and demand that we make it happen.  Also there are apps that save patient data for quick reference such as images and X-rays that don't get saved because of this.  All that gets saved with writable vols.  Have not fond a way in DEM

[Lieven]

My opinion: stay away from Writeable Volumes and start using FSlogix

We use the following

• Folder redirection
  • to redirect desktop, documents, downloads, favorites, music, pictures, videos
• App Volumes for
  • Personalisation:
    • Applications:
      • Chrome, Edge, Teams, Zoom
    • Windows Settings:
      • Default Apps and FTAs, IE Passwords, IE Webcache, IE Autocomplete passwords, Keyboard layout, Printers, Regional Settings, Desktop Layout roaming, taskbar, typed history, Wallpaper, Windows Explorer
  • User environment:
    • shortcuts, printer mappings, drive mappings, File Type associations, privilege elevation, ...
• FSlogix for all the rest
  • Separate officecontainer and profilecontainer
  • For some applications that do not work well with App Volumes, I use FSlogix App Masking

The above setup has given me the best results and flexibility so far with a logon time of +/- 30 seconds.

When problems do arise, you can easily delete the fslogix profile portion for a user and the DEM Windows settings portion without the user loosing information.

I tried Writeable Volumes in the past, but it gave me loads of problems. FSlogix is a lot more robust.

Looking at all the release notes of all the different App Volumes versions, you will see that most of the "known problems" are related to Writeable Volumes.