Unidesk AppConfig Utility Ver 1.0

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1 Unidesk AppConfig Utility Ver 1.0 This utility can be used to configure settings that affect standard applications and those that help to optimize logon times for non-persistent desktops. Currently included in the utility are: Force GP Updates Create Autologon User Disable Reset on Logout Shutdown Desktops Nightly Disable Remove Ready Disable Active Setup Tasks Activate Office via KMS during desktop build Define NoReReg for Office These options are discussed in detail below. The functionality is implemented with an application that allows you to configure the desired settings and a set of scripts that carry out the commands. The new scrips include the following KMSSETUP.CMD Office2013Windows81_PREP.cmd OfficeActivate.cmd OfficeNoReReg.cmd These scripts are also explained in detail below. The scripts were designed so that they will work on existing or new persistent desktops. Some features will work on existing non-persistent desktops but some will require build new nonpersistent desktops. Upgrading From a Previous Version If you are upgrading from a previous version of the Unidesk Gold Image Tools follow these instructions. You may want to make this change when you are patching the OS layer to combine the wok effort. 1. Add a version to your OS layer 1 - Copyright 2014 Unidesk Corporation

2 2. If you have customized any of the files in the kmsdir folder then backup your existing scripts by copying the entire c:\windows\setup\scripts folder to a safe location ie network share 3. Unblock the zip file in Windows by editing the properties of the zip 4. Unzip the files 5. Copy the new kmssetup.cmd file to the c:\windows\setup\scripts\kmsdir folder 6. Copy all the other files to the c:\windows\setup\scripts folder 7. Finalize the OS layer To Implement The Scripts The majority of the scripting works by the utility creating flag files in the scripts folder or the kmsdir folder. Then the kmssetup.cmd file performs different functions based on the inclusion or not of the flag files. To use the script create an application layer and run the AppConfig Utility. Select the desired options and save the settings. To Activate Office To activate office there is a two step process. Run the utility select activate office and check all the Office Apps that are included in your layer. When you save this will create two or more flag files in the scripts folder. One will be OfficeActivate.txt which tells the kmssetup.cmd to run OfficeActivate.cmd. There will also be a flag file for each office application selected. This tells the OfficeActivate.cmd script to include that office application when inserting the kms key and activating office. When Using Office 2013 on Windows 8.1 There is one other important step if you are installing Office 2013 on Windows 8.1. After installing your office application and before finalizing run the Office2013Windows81_PREP.cmd script. This will make copies of the c:\windows\system32\spp\store\2.0\data.dat and c:\windows\system32\spp\store\2.0\tokens.dat files and store them for use later on the desktop. Then when the activation script is run they will be copied up to their original location but in the UEP of the desktops so that they match what the office layer saw when it was installed. 2 - Copyright 2014 Unidesk Corporation

3 Detailed information on Settings Force GP Updates (AppConfig Utility) This will run GPUpdate during the build so that NP desktops have their policies updated prior to freezing their UEP volumes. be run every boot if added after the initial build. Create Autologon User (AppConfig Utility) This feature is used to speed up NP desktop logins slightly. See the layering recipe for NP Desktop performance Optimization. Note this will only work if included during desktop build. Disable Reset on Logout (AppConfig Utility) This feature can be used in a situation where you do not want to reset NP desktops on logout because turnover of many desktops at one time would cause infrastructure issues or make it so not enough desktops are available to meet demand. The classic use case for this is a student lab in a classroom where 40 desktops are logged out of and logged in to basically at the same time. This setting is normally combined with the next settings Shutdown Desktops Nightly.. See the layering recipe for NP Desktop performance Optimization. Note this will work both if added before desktop creation or after. Shutdown Desktops Nightly (AppConfig Utility) This features will add a scheduled task to shutdown the desktops randomly over a defined hour every night. This feature is usually used in conjunction with Disable Reset on Logout and provides a mechanism to reset the desktop once a day. Be careful using this feature when the desktop is shut down the user is notified but the desktop reboot happens whether a user is logged on or not.. See the layering recipe for NP Desktop performance Optimization. be added every boot if added after the initial build. 3 - Copyright 2014 Unidesk Corporation

4 Disable Remove Ready At the end of the build process for non-persistent desktops the UEP disks which are writable during the build are changed to independent Non Persistent Disks. This is what makes a NP desktop non-persistent. This change is controlled by a registry key. When the following key is deleted the disks are converted to non-persistent. HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Uniservice\BlockReadyMessage When this feature is selected the script that deletes this key is never run on a building desktop. What this does is that the desktop build like a persistent desktop but the desktop create will not finish. This allows you to then log into the desktops and make any desired changes manually. Then when the desktop configuration is complete just go to the kmsdir directory find the removeready.cmd and run it. The machine will then be automatically shutdown by uniservice and the disks will be converted to non-persistent and the desktop build tasks will complete. Disable Active Setup Tasks (AppConfig Utility) This feature is also used to speed up NP desktop logon. Windows 7 or Windows 8 includes a set of tasks that every user runs the first time they log on to a computer. On a persistent desktop these only run once so that only the first logon takes longer. On a NP desktop every logon is the first logon so they all take longer. Active setup tasks are not necessary they are mainly for obsolete software. Removing these entries can shorten logon considerably. However if a mandatory profile is used for NP desktops then this feature will not be required.. See the layering recipe for NP Desktop performance Optimization. Note this will work both if added before desktop creation or after. Activate Office via KMS during desktop build (AppConfig Utility) Since Office is so often used by customers we added activation scripting to make it easier for customers to activate Office for NP desktops while they build. This feature will add flag files to the scripts folder that tell the ActivateOffice.cmd script what versions of office to activate. To use this feature add the flag file for each office layer in its own layer. So when adding Office 2010 open the AppConfg utility and save the Office 2010 flag file. Then in the Visio layer include the Visio Flag file etc. If the Flag files are present when the machine is built that application will be included in KMS activation. Note this works for KMS activation only. run every boot if added after the initial build. 4 - Copyright 2014 Unidesk Corporation

5 Define NoReReg for Office (AppConfig Utility) When different versions of Office are installed on the same desktop it causes a battle over Office registration. This is one of the reasons Microsoft does not support mixing Office versions. By default if you have two separate versions of office applications installed whenever you switch from one to the other the Office Configuration Wizard will run. This is very annoying for users. A partial solution to this problem is to add NoReReg (No re Registration) keys to the default profile for the Office version used less frequently. The NoReReg registry keys tell that version of office not to re-register when that particular application is run. This feature allows you to select which major version of Office software you want to set NoReReg for and it creates a flag file to tell the NoReReg.cmd script to process that version. run every boot if added after the initial build. This is still not a good solution because the registration will still happen once for both versions and on a NP desktop that means once per logon. The only good solution is to use a single version of Office as Microsoft Recommends. 5 - Copyright 2014 Unidesk Corporation