Information:
The information provided below is general in nature for most Presentation Server / Terminal Server environments that will be running multiple desktop applications. The focus of this document is to provide the basic configuration information needed for general Terminal Server environments. The needs of specific environments may vary.
OS and Services Configuration
1) File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
a. Configure as Minimize memory used this will allow more memory to be used for desktop applications
2) System Performance Option
a. Processor Scheduling
i. Adjust for best performance of Programs
ii. Description of Performance Options in Windows
b. Memory Usage
i. Adjust for best performance of Programs
c. These settings allow for the best usage of memory for desktop applications
3) Configure System failure options in System Startup and Recovery
a. Enable Automatically restart
b. Write debugging information
i. Small memory dump (64 KB).
c. This will allow the server to crash and reboot the quickest, while providing some basic debugging information.
4) Configure the Page file to be on the System Partition or separate Hard Drives
a. Page file performance is directly related to the position it holds on the hard drive spindle. The closer it sits to the beginning of the drive (the outer ring of the platter) the better the performance.
b. Creating a separate partition on the same hard drive and placing the page file here moves the page file further away from the beginning of the drive and is not recommended.
5) Configure appropriate NIC driver settings
a. Maximize the Transmit and Receive buffers the NIC.
b. This will maximize network access.
6) Disable the paging of the Windows Executive
a. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
i. “DisablePagingExecutive”=dword:00000001
b. The will maximize the responsiveness of the operating system to all requests when under load.
7) Schedule Defrag of all drives on a nightly basis
a. This will keep the file system optimized over time
8) Schedule reboot of all servers on a nightly basis
a. This will help “automatically” clear issues with servers on a nightly basis, and reduce your administration of issues.
User Experience and Configuration
9) Pre-configure various user settings that sap bandwidth or decrease end user experience
a. Some of these settings are covered by “Visual Effects” performance Options
b. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
i. “AutoEndTasks” (REG_SZ)=”1”
ii. “WaitToKillAppTimeout” (REG_SZ)=”20000”
iii. “MenuShowDelay” (REG_SZ)=”10”
iv. “SmoothScroll” (REG_DWORD)=”00000000”
v. “DragFullWindows” (REG_SZ)=”0”
c. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]
i. “MinAnimate” (REG_SZ)=”1”
Non-Performance Related Configuration
10) Change the default “My Computer” label to something more useful.
a. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
b. Change the “LocalizedString” to something like
%USERNAME% on %COMPUTERNAME%.