Prep image for Horizon environment managed by others

[zenking]

Hi. I manage a vSphere 6.7 environment that mostly consists of Windows terminal servers and Linux web servers. Our campus has a Horizon environment (v7, I thiink) that I'm creating a Windows 10 image to use for some special projects. I'm not an admin on Horizon, although I may be able to get some mgmt access at some point. The Horizon manager is a great guy but is pretty busy, so I'm hoping to get some basic guidance on image prep without pestering him. The plan is for me to create a golden image and send him the vmdk. We're both part of the same active directory forest but manage separate OUs.

Basic image prep - I've created a Windows 10 2004 Enterprise guest and installed apps like I normally would, and I've cleaned up temp files. I just found this page on optimizing the image, so I didn't turn on auditing mode after the initial vm creation. I'm looking through it for other recommendations, but a lot of it seems to be tasks that the HZ mgr will need to do after he gets my vmdk.

Creating an Optimized Windows Image for a VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop | VMware

Restricted applications - Most of the apps I've installed are licensed for all users, but we have a few that will need to be licensed per paid user. I'd like to avoid having to create a different image for each paid app or combination of those apps. On my terminal servers, I control that by removing the NTFS permissions for the local users group and adding an AD group for that app where the vendor allows us to do that. Is there a different way to do that in Horizon?

Default user profile - I'm planning on creating unless there's a more Horizon specific way to do it.

I've installed the horizon client and I'm planning to sysprep and shut down, then send the disk.

Am I missing any steps? Thanks very much for any assistance.

[Mickeybyte2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Regarding your golden image, be sure to check which Horizon version is used in your environment and check if the Windows 10 2004 version is supported on it! (VMware Knowledge Base )

Also run the latest OSOT tool (https://flings.vmware.com/vmware-os-optimization-tool​) on your image to further optimize your image.

Regarding restricting applications you have some options:

1) AppVolumes, depending on your Horizon license it's already included, allows you to attach applications based on the user logging in to the VDI

2) Take a look at FSLogix App Masking. It works way better and easier than restricting access using NTFS permissions.(Can also be used on terminal servers by the way and is probably already included in your existing MS licenses)

Regards,

Michiel

[zenking]

Thanks, Michiel. That's great information. I'll check out those tools and verify the Horizon version.