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Tobias
Asked: 2015-07-29 01:31:18 +0800 CST

Disable Visual Effects for Windows 8.1 Virtual Desktop

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I am trying to build a new virtual desktop Pool in VMWare Horizon View 5 with Windows 8.1 clients. At the Moment, i am optimizing the image for best performance, including using an optimization script from Microsoft Technet. In this script there is a part where the visual effects in windows (Aero Peek...) are disabled by changeing registry keys. The problem is, these keys are placed unter "HK_Current_user", so if the script is, as proposed, run as part of the deployment, these changes do not affect new user accounts.

Now i've searched for two days to find a way to disable these visual effects for all new users - with these effects enabled, the VDI is extremely slow.

I found several pages that propose to change or create different registry entries, some under local_machines, for some i had to import the NTUSER.dat of the default user.

The Problem with all of these solution: they don't work. Maybe it is because they need another reboot to take effect. But our virtual desktops are reset after a user logged out.

tl;dr

I have VMWare Horizon View, i want to optimize an image for a new virtual Windows 8.1 Desktop, and i want to disable all the visual effects (Aero Peek...) for all new user profiles - because everytime a user is logged of, the virtual desktop is recreated, so a new user will get an unused, newly created machine.

Does anyone know a way to do this by Powershell, batch-file, GPO... But without the (not working) registry keys? Or does anyone know a way to do this with registry changes, even if the user can only log in one time - so without reboot, re-login?

EDIT: I now tried to create a whole new user profile with this manual. All steps work, but when i create a new user account, the visual effects are not disabled... is it possible that Microsoft has no way to set the default visual effects?

EDIT2: New crazy behavior: when a new user is created, the the settings in the GUI are sometimes very different. I am working with my clean installation now, befor i started to change reg keys, and now in the GUI the settings are set for best performance - but they are not realy set for best performance: all the features are still enabled, even if the GUI is telling something different. You have to change the settings, re-set it to Best performance, and then the features are realy disabled.

windows-registry

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Finaly, after days of testing, changeing registry keys, reseting snapshot... i might have found the solution, at least now it works in my enviroment:

    I hat to set HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\VisualFXSetting to 00000003 (which means custom settings), and then i could change the "DefaultValue"-Entry in the different sub folders of HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects\VisualFXSetting, 0 for disabled, 1 for enabled. The crazy thing is, every other registry change i tried seemed to prevent this one from working. It only worked when i just changed this setting, and no other!

    I'm glad i could do this on a VM with snapshots, otherwise i would still searching...

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