Those who manage VMware View currently or have used it in the past may be familiar with desktop customization which is required to provide a unique identity on the network for each View Composer VDI session in a pool. If you’ve got a pretty good Microsoft background, you’re probably already familiar with Sysprep – Microsoft’s tool for customizing Windows server and desktop OS deployments. VMware View Administrators have an alternative tool which can be used for desktop customization called QuickPrep. For all intents and purposes, QuickPrep was designed to accomplish many of the same tasks Sysprep did, but the obvious advantage QuickPrep has is that the code and development belongs to VMware and as a result can be tightly integrated with products in VMware’s portfolio.
I was on a call this morning with VMware Senior Technical Trainer Linus Bourque (Twitter: @LinusBourque Blog: http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/lbourque Cigars: yes) when he pulled up a table slide which was the result of VMware KB Article 2003797 Differences between QuickPrep and Sysprep. For those who are curious about the similarities and differences between the two (like me), look no further.
From the KB Article:
- Creates a new computer account in Active Directory for each desktop.
- Gives the linked-clone desktop a new name.
- Joins the desktop to the appropriate domain.
- Optionally, mounts a new volume that contains the user profile information.
| Function | QuickPrep | Sysprep |
| Removing local accounts | No | Yes |
| Changing Security Identifiers (SID) | No | Yes |
| Removing parent from domain | No | Yes |
| Changing computer name | Yes | Yes |
| Joining the new instance to the domain | Yes | Yes |
| Generating new SID | No | Yes |
| Language, regional settings, date, and time customization | No | Yes |
| Number of reboots | 0 | 1 (seal & mini-setup) |
| Requires configuration file and Sysprep | No | Yes |
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