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Claudio_R
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VMware OS Optimization Tool Updates

Hallo,

The, VMware OS Optimization Tool has not been updated since July 30,2018.

The operating systems supported by Horizon are not yet supported by the tool such as for example Windows Server 2019

The documentation recommends using the tool but if it is not updated how can operating systems be optimized in a Horizon environment?

Do you know if is there any information about future tool updates? or  if is there any alternative tool used successfully in the Horizon environment?

Thank You

Claudio

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sWORDs
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I've not seen this thread, but happened to stumble upon it today and want to add a couple of thoughts as some of the conclusions above might not be correct.

1) The reason for not updating OSOT for quite a while had nothing to do with us not making time or wanting to update. The problem we had was that Windows 1809 and higher made it impossible to get into a well working state. We needed fixes for vSphere and fixes from Microsoft, both taking quite a while to appear. In the meantime OSOT was working well with 1803 and older, so we had nothing to update. Unfortunately every fix that came out from Microsoft caused something else to break, it took till mid September till we had a well working combination of vSphere, Windows patches and OSOT settings for 1809+. And we released OSOT in the same week as we found a well working combination. Keep in mind that 1809+ will still not perform as well as 1803 or the best performing version so far: 1709. (which has nothing todo with OSOT but changes to the operating system that can not be undone by optimization)

2) Yes, we are looking at productizing OSOT and possibly even integrating it with other products. Why we've not done this earlier is because the demand wasn't that high, Windows 10 made it more prominent. About competitors having productized it earlier, well yes, but they didn't have a fling in the years before, nor do they have as much optimization as OSOT. Productizing also has disadvantages as making changes would be a much lengthier and harder process. And while this might be a fling, we have always had a dedicated engineer for our flings who's priority is OSOT. OSOT is build during business hours with the same build system as all our productized software. Some of my work and others are also done during business hours, and yes some time during the evenings, but that's done because I want to, not because I have to.

3) Using non VMware templates isn't recommend, the one mentioned above is a copy of our old template, but then with nearly everything turned on and a couple extra settings. There is a reason why certain items are not selected by default, whenever we have two or more customers having issues with certain optimizations and apps we deselect them as defaults. Having hard to trace issues isn't worth a percent or less density. Also keep in mind that older copies are missing all the latest fixes!

Anyway, there is a new version of OSOT, which even includes support for the soon to be released 1909 version, and there is another update planned in a couple of weeks to add support for Windows Server 2019. We want to overhaul the server templates completely, but didn't want people to have to wait with Windows 10 1809+.

The latest version of OSOT includes fixes for start menu delay, working with domain admin, much lower idle usage and sysprep.

The Creating an Optimized Windows Image for a VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop | VMware is also updated as 1809+ doesn't work consistently with mandatory profiles.

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lucasitteam
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Hallo,

I strongly suggest you use, VDILIKEPRO this has always been more efficient than VMware provided.

I have used it on windows 1903 found is working.

pastedImage_0.png

HendersonD
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If I use either optimization withing the optimizer tool, once the VM reboots and I try opening System...App and get an "array bounds exceeded" and it refuses to open

I am not sure exactly what is being disabled or turned off that will not allow Apps to open

Any ideas? If I cannot figure it out, may have to use 1809

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HendersonD
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I ended up opening a ticket with VMWare after doing some more testing. We are running ESXi 6.7 U2 and View 7.9 with instant clones

  1. Brought up new Win10 VM with 2 vCPUs, 4GB RAM, 60GB thin provisioned disk
  2. Installed Windows 10 education version 1903. During install put it in audit mode
  3. Installed VMWare tools
  4. Set time/date within Windows and then activated Windows
  5. Ran Windows updates
  6. Ran sysprep
  7. At this point I could go to Settings and open Apps just fine
  8. Ran the VMWare OS Optimization Tool (OSOT) unchecking persona management under Compatibility and Optimizing using all the defaults
  9. I went to Settings and tried to open Apps getting an error "Arrays bound exceeded"

Before I ran OSOT, I took a snapshot of the VM. If I revert to the snapshot, Apps opens fine. Since OSOT has not been updated in a year, I am thinking it does not work properly with Win10 v1903. I will report back once I hear from support

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NoDowt
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It definitely feels like this tool is dead in the water... We're going to be building a new VDI environment soon so was hoping this tool would be updated by then, but more & more it seems like nothing is going to happen.

I think we'll likely not even bother with this tool in the new build & instead look at implementing some of the optimisations via Ivanti EM or Group Policy instead.

HendersonD
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I am not familiar with the Ivanti product but there is a big difference between what you can do with Group Policy versus what a tool like OSOT does. OSOT turns off a bunch of services/features that are not needed in a VDI desktop. Sure these services/features could be left on at the expense of CPU cycles and memory consumption. An optimized master image saves 30% of these resources

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmware-view-horizon-7-wi...

In other words, without using a tool like OSOT you will need 30% more CPU power and 30% more RAM to stand up the same number of desktops

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mchadwick19
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There are many other tools and guides available that perform similar optimizations. Just because you use Horizon doesn't mean you HAVE to use the OSOT.

The Citrix optimizer has been updated and performs many of the same optimizations: Citrix Optimizer 2.5 – What's New | Citrix Blogs

Microsoft has a github with an optimization script library: GitHub - cluberti/VDI: Repository for VDI scripts

Dan Feller has an awesome Win10 optimization guide: https://virtualfeller.com/bp/

As always, use these tools with "YMMV" in mind. And in my experiences, the OSOT hasn't been an end-all be-all optimization tool for the entire life of Win10. There has always been something that it breaks. I always go through it iteratively with each section and making sure that the image is exactly what I needed. It takes time, but you save yourself the headaches.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
HendersonD
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It is just disappointing that OSOT has not been kept up to date by VMware to handle newer versions of Windows. I mentioned that right now running OSOT under Win10 v1903 breaks the ability to open Settings...Apps. I do not have time to go through OSOT line by line and do testing to figure out which feature/service gets disabled that hoses Apps opening. I expect VMware to do this R&D

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mchadwick19
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The tool is a fling, it's not an officially supported app by VMware. It's only supported by the team that built it. When downloading the app you accept the tech preview license and acknowledge that these are experimental apps and should not be expected to have successful results all the time.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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Claudio_R
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Hello,

On this site where there are many VDI related interesting resources there is an article about VMware OS Optimizer Tool.

https://www.go-euc.com/the-true-power-of-vmware-osot-in-vdi/

the following is a comment from Hilko Lantinga that is a contributor to the project of VMware OS Optimizer Tool

"While the statement about support is correct I would like to clarify why the statement is there. It's not that we think the tool is incapable of running on production systems, as it is and multiple customers are using it as such, but as it's a free tool and developers are assigned when time allows it, the support isn't the same as on an official product nor do we accept any liability. This might change in the future as we are exploring ways of either integrating the technology or productizing the OS Optimizer Tool."

mchadwick19 probably third-party tools are also fine as written by you, but it would be more elegant if the VMware tools that are recommended in the documentation go hand in hand with the development of the Horizon. The hope is that as announced several times the tool will be put into production and official support.

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HendersonD
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VMware Horizon View is a supported product by VMware and is used around the world. VDI has lots of great use cases and when VMWare promotes their product they mention these use cases and the advantages they bring. Much of the economic advantage is gained only if the VDI master image is optimized otherwise costs to run VDI are significantly higher. The article I linked to in my previous post is one put out by VMware showing this 30% improvement using OSOT. You would think that VMware would fully support an optimization product since it is in their best interest. The Citrix optimization product is regularly updated and fully supported.

In essence, VMware by not updating OSOT is telling customers with the newest version of Windows we do not have an optimization product, so either

  • Look elsewhere for an optimization product
  • Run without optimization and incur greater cost

At the moment I am between a rock and a hard place. We are running Win10 v1709 and OSOT works great for this version. v1709 is going end of life in January so we have to jump to a newer version. The logical jump is to v1903 but OSOT does not work.

Claudio_R
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Hello,

I opened the ticket  SR19023959808 asking for support for optimizing Windows Server 2019 in the Horizon environment this is the answer:

" The, VMware OS Optimization Tool is just a fling tool. It is a free to go tool which can be used for building base images. The operating systems supported by Horizon are not yet supported meaning there need not be a supporting document to that and we do not have one since it is not under the responsibility of the developers but in the interest of people."

"We do not have any document supporting the optimization of server 2019"

Do you know if is there any information about future tool updates? "Not as yet"

... what do you think?

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NoDowt
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@HendersonD Not sure I agree with your statement... OSOT is just running scripts in the background to disable services, OS features & set registry values... All of which can be done with group policy too, either directly via a group policy template, via group policy preference items, or via computer startup/user login script.

Regarding it being a fling with no support... We get that, but if you supported application documentation says 'use the OSOT'... It really should be supported & updated accordingly... Otherwise just don't mention it at all in the documentation     ‍♂️

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HendersonD
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NoDowt,

You might be correct that Group Policy can do everything that OSOT can do but I would venture it would takes days worth of work to fashion group policies/scripts to reproduce what OSOT does. This would make my Group Policies a lot more complicated. A solid version of OSOT updated by VMware is certainly a better route to go.

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HPU-ADM
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That is such bs for vmware to recommend to use vmware OS Optimization tool but with the caveat it's not supported.

Vmware sells Horizon View with the enterprise COST for the product and enterprise COST for upgrades AND support.  In part the windows operating system is bloated and has many services, subsystems and user settings that can be turned off for "better performance for the user experience".  But as part of the enterprise product you would think that optimization is fundamental part for the overall deployment BUT IT IS NOT included, but "hey, there's a fling that's slapped together by our engineeers on their spare time that you should use."

I mean seriously, how can a company get away with a product feature like that?

Well, with it being over a year that the fling hasn't been updated nor has it been "productized", it doesn't seem like vmware has no incentive to do either.  We are all still using it right? And paying what we pay year in and year out.

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mouraMXmouraMX
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Hi,

Just adding to the thread...

I attended a VDI event a couple months ago where Hilko was explaining the functionality of OSOT and what we can expected for the future of it.

He said that still this year a new version will be released, the idea is to integrate OSOT with UEM, and a new approach in how you can optimize a VM, you'll have the option to receive the best optimization settings based in few questions that the tool will ask for you.... maybe based on use cases, Worker, Developer... I don't know, he didn't mention.

I'm using it for 1803 and works pretty well, I didn't test it with 1903, because of the problems with snapshots + VMFS6 + 6.7u2.

Oh, and the OSOT itself doesn't do all the job, I've been using the VDILIKEAPRO template with some changes and different settings, and other manual tasks during the audit mode, sysprep, and customization.

Let's see, I agree with you guys, they should have a better support for it. I hope they'll do something about it.

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Claudio_R
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Hello,

New version released:

VMware OS Optimization Tool

September 21, 2019

version b1110

https://flings.vmware.com/vmware-os-optimization-tool#summary

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sWORDs
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I've not seen this thread, but happened to stumble upon it today and want to add a couple of thoughts as some of the conclusions above might not be correct.

1) The reason for not updating OSOT for quite a while had nothing to do with us not making time or wanting to update. The problem we had was that Windows 1809 and higher made it impossible to get into a well working state. We needed fixes for vSphere and fixes from Microsoft, both taking quite a while to appear. In the meantime OSOT was working well with 1803 and older, so we had nothing to update. Unfortunately every fix that came out from Microsoft caused something else to break, it took till mid September till we had a well working combination of vSphere, Windows patches and OSOT settings for 1809+. And we released OSOT in the same week as we found a well working combination. Keep in mind that 1809+ will still not perform as well as 1803 or the best performing version so far: 1709. (which has nothing todo with OSOT but changes to the operating system that can not be undone by optimization)

2) Yes, we are looking at productizing OSOT and possibly even integrating it with other products. Why we've not done this earlier is because the demand wasn't that high, Windows 10 made it more prominent. About competitors having productized it earlier, well yes, but they didn't have a fling in the years before, nor do they have as much optimization as OSOT. Productizing also has disadvantages as making changes would be a much lengthier and harder process. And while this might be a fling, we have always had a dedicated engineer for our flings who's priority is OSOT. OSOT is build during business hours with the same build system as all our productized software. Some of my work and others are also done during business hours, and yes some time during the evenings, but that's done because I want to, not because I have to.

3) Using non VMware templates isn't recommend, the one mentioned above is a copy of our old template, but then with nearly everything turned on and a couple extra settings. There is a reason why certain items are not selected by default, whenever we have two or more customers having issues with certain optimizations and apps we deselect them as defaults. Having hard to trace issues isn't worth a percent or less density. Also keep in mind that older copies are missing all the latest fixes!

Anyway, there is a new version of OSOT, which even includes support for the soon to be released 1909 version, and there is another update planned in a couple of weeks to add support for Windows Server 2019. We want to overhaul the server templates completely, but didn't want people to have to wait with Windows 10 1809+.

The latest version of OSOT includes fixes for start menu delay, working with domain admin, much lower idle usage and sysprep.

The Creating an Optimized Windows Image for a VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop | VMware is also updated as 1809+ doesn't work consistently with mandatory profiles.

HPU-ADM
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Thanks, I appreciate the response.

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Claudio_R
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Hello,

Thank you  for providing useful information

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