Hello,
We are planning a RDS 2008 R2 deployment and are looking for the best way to maintain centralized RDS start menus and shortcuts. We plan to redirect the start menus to a path but are unsure if that path should be somewhere locally on the RDS server or on a network path. We are concerned that the network path (although running at gigabit speed) could put unnecessary loads on the file servers and RDS network. We are also using App-V which will pre-populate most of the shortcuts for us, but what do we do about generic windows apps like notepad and calculator? Should we just use group policy preferences to add those shortcuts? I remember in 2003 TS and before, we would just use group policy to redirect the start menu to a local path on the terminal servers and then run a script that would populate that path with the common shortcuts which we saved in a network location. With group policy preferences, maybe redirection isn't necessary at all. I'm not sure so I'm asking for feedback on the best way to do this.
Thanks,
Joe
Nice Post.Thanks for those valuable information.Hope your plan will be succeed.Wish you all the best.Thank you.
Take a step back - virtual applications should be used for software that will be distributed to multiple platforms. Virtual applications eliminate the need to (1) install applications and (2) test for compatibility. For example, let's say that I want to standardize the mail client in my organization to be Outlook 2010, but I have no idea whether it will work the same (or at all) on Windows XP, 2003, Windows 8, and Windows 8 Server. Creating my App-V package allows me to deploy Outlook 2010 to any of those platforms without worry.
So getting back to your question about Notepad and Calculator... There will ALWAYS be a pre-installed notepad and calculator on Windows Operating Systems. Therefore, there is no need to package those applications for App-V. Use Group Policies or shortcuts to the local calc.exe and notepad.exe
You should NOT be concerned about redirecting the Start Menu to a network share because shortcuts (.LNK) files are 1 kb files. The network and IOPS for redirecting the Start Menu is negligible. Personally, if I was redirecting the Start Menu then I'd use a local folder to eliminate points of failure. You don't want your app servers down if the file server isn't responding...
James Szivos