VMware Horizon – Windows 10 gold image – my best practices

This article is about my own experiences and best practices with deploy of gold image for VDI infrastructure with Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Office and FXlogic profile and Office containers.

VM configuration

• always use VMXNET3 network adapter 
• If its possible – use flash storage array for OS HDD, i using thin provisioning. 
• use separate VLAN for VDI desktops

Prepare your gold image

• use only Windows builds which are supported with version of VMware Horizon 
• i used image – Windows 10 1909 – build 18363.592
• Install VMware tools
• Reboot
• Install Horizon Agent
• Reboot
• Install all requiered apps 
• reboot
• Run OSOT
• Shutdown
• Create Snapshot

Microsoft Teams (non persistent desktops) 

• msiexec /i Teams_windows_x64.msi OPTIONS=“noAutoStart=true“ ALLUSER=1 ALLUSERS=1 

documentation: Teams for Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure

Microsoft OneDrive (non persistend desktops) 

• OneDriveSetup.exe /allusers

Microsoft Office 

• allways use latest Office Deployment Tool 
• create your own cusomized.xml in my case:  
• download setup files with xml file – setup.exe /download non-persistent22.xml
• install office with your xml file – setup.exe /configure non-persistent22.xml
• If you want use KSM licence server for Office – download:
  • Microsoft Office 2016 Volume License Pack (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49164) 
  • Microsoft Office 2019 Volume License Pack (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=57342) – 
  • Microsoft Office LTSC 2021 Volume License Pack (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103446) 

FXlogics 

• I using both of containers – profile and office
• configuring fxlogics policies with Group Policy
• there is „basic“ config i using

Profile containers

• Enabled – Enabled
• VHD location – \\server\containers\profiles
• Dynamic VHD(X) allocation – enabled 
• Size in MB – 5000 
• in Advanced parameters i using the „Provide RedirXML file to customize redirections“ – \\domain\SYSVOL\domain\scripts 

Because some of apps bloating the profile i use the redirections.xml – for example teams cache. I wanna write post about redirections.xml and bloating profiles with FXlogics, so i put link here 🙂  stay tuned ! 

Office containers

• Dynamic VHD(X) allocation – enabled 
• Enabled – Enabled
• Include Teams Data in container – Enabled
• Size in MB – 5000
• VHD location – \\server\containers\office
• Virtual disk type – VHDX