6.0

Table Of Contents
Table 39. Impact of Windows 7 and Windows 8 Services and Tasks on OS Disk Growth and IOPS When OS Is Left
Idle (Continued)
Service or Task Description
Default
Occurrence or
Startup
Impact on
Linked-Clone OS
Disks Impact on IOPS
Turn Off This
Service or Task?
Windows Update
Service
Detects,
downloads, and
installs updates for
Windows and
other programs.
Automatic startup Medium to high.
Causes frequent
writes to the
linked-clones' OS
disks because
update checks
occur often. The
impact depends on
the updates that
are downloaded.
Medium to high Yes, if you use View
Composer
recompose to install
Windows updates
and refresh to
return OS disks to
their original
snapshots.
Windows
Diagnostic Policy
Service
Detects,
troubleshoots, and
resolves problems
in Windows
components. If
you stop this
service,
diagnostics no
longer function.
Automatic startup Medium to high.
The service is
triggered on
demand. The write
frequency varies,
depending on
demand.
Small to medium Yes, if you do not
need the diagnostic
tools to function on
the desktops.
Prefetch/Superfetch Stores specific
information about
applications that
you run to help
them start faster.
This feature was
introduced in
Windows XP.
Always on, unless
it is disabled.
Medium
Causes periodic
updates to its
layout and
database
information and
individual
prefetch files,
which are
generated on
demand.
Medium Yes, if application
startup times are
acceptable after you
disable this feature.
Windows Registry
Backup
(RegIdleBackup)
Automatically
backs up the
Windows registry
when the system is
idle.
Every 10 days at
12:00 am
Medium.
Each time this task
runs, it generates
registry backup
files.
Medium. Yes.
There is no need for
Windows Registry
Backup. To restore
registry data, you
can use the View
Composer refresh
operation.
System Restore Reverts the
Windows system
to a previous,
healthy state.
When Windows
starts up and once
a day thereafter.
Small to medium.
Captures a system
restore point
whenever the
system detects that
it is needed. When
the linked clone is
idle, this overhead
is small.
No major impact. Yes
Although its impact
is small, this task is
redundant if you
use View Composer
refresh to return OS
disks to their
original snapshots.
Setting Up Desktop and Application Pools in View
38 VMware, Inc.