EUC Series: Improve Logon Duration Times with Autoruns

Whether you’re running Citrix, VMware, or another virtual desktop solution that involves a Microsoft Windows OS, one of the most desired improvements is user-login duration. Since login duration can make or break the user experience, you want to get it right. Let me tell you about Autoruns: a free utility from Microsoft Sysinternals for disabling Active Setup in a non-persistent virtual desktop environment.

Active Setup is a mechanism in Windows that executes commands once per user at login. You’ve probably seen the Personalized Settings window pop-up at login once or twice.

Autoruns is an executable you can download and run to see which programs are configured to start during system bootup or login. It displays a lot of information, some of which may surprise you.

In the example below, I ran Autoruns on Windows Server 2016 using “Run as administrator,” then clicked on the Find Icon (binoculars) and typed “Active Setup.” I then unchecked everything under Active Setup, tested it, and saw improved login times. That’s it! Of course, your mileage may vary, as there might be entries you want to keep, or setup via group policies, etc.

A simple change like this can go a long way to improving your user experience. So challenge yourself today and give Autoruns a try. It’s free. But always test, test, test before rolling into production. For more information on improving your virtual desktop environment please feel free to contact us. We’d love to help! Lastly, for more information on End User Computing click here for the Anexinet blog archive, which includes some of my previous posts (e.g. my previous entry in the EUC Series: Customizing Your Windows Start Menu & Taskbar Layout).