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163 lines
6.0 KiB
Markdown
163 lines
6.0 KiB
Markdown
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Disable/Uninstall unnecessary features/services
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=============================
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Windows features
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----------------------------
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Uninstall windows features from Control Panel > Turn windows features On/Off.
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Generally, it will be required to reboot after features are uninstalled.
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If you do not manage to uninstall some features, it is sometimes necessary to uninstall them one by one or two by two.
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Only keep:
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* Print and Document Service => Internet Printing Client
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* Print and Document Service => Windows Fax and Scan (apparently it cannot be uninstalled)
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* Windows search
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*Note*: Windows search is recommended because it is a nightmare to find something in menus if it is not enabled (it removes the search bar from the start menu, from the explorer, and from the control panel).
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*Note*: Unselecting windows media, .Net and Internet Explorer will uninstall these components. On a new install they are generally old versions anyway and it will be quicker to install directly the new versions later.
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Windows services
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---------------------------
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Disable the following services that are not required or have no sense in a VM context:
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* Base Filtering Engine (only required if you want to use Microsoft IPSEC)
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* DHCP Client
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* Function Discovery Provider Host
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this will not work anyway because SSDP discovery uses multicast - need to be on the same network which is not the case because of Qubes firewall
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* Peer Name Resolution Protocol
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* Peer Netwoking Grouping
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* Peer Networking Identity Manager
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* SSDP Discovery
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* Security Center (is it only notifications ?)
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* TCP/IP Netbios Help (is Netbios still really used by Windows ? Maybe for discovery only ?)
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* Themes (if you don't care about theme)
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* Volume Shadow Copy (see next note in the performance section)
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* Windows defender
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* Windows Firewall
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*Notes*: IP Helper is required as it is used by Qubes Agent to configure the IP address.
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Windows update
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--------------------------
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I recommend disabling windows update (Never Check for Update) because checking for updates will start every time you start an AppVM if you haven't started your template in a while.
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Running windows update is also apparently IO hungry.
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Of course I recommend starting the template regularly and checking manually for updates.
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System properties
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---------------------------
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Right click on computer and go to Properties > Advanced > Performance:
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* If you don't care about visual effect, in Visual Effect select "Adjust for best performance"
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* I personally tweak the page file size to gain some space on my root.
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In Advanced>Performances>Advanced tab, change Virtual memory:
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1. unselect automatically manage paging file size for all drive
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2. click on drive C:
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3. select no paging file
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4. click on set
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5. click on drive d:
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6. select customer size
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7. use an initial size of 500 and a max size of 1000. If the page file is too small, you will notice a low memory pop up when working on windows. In this case, it often means that you should extend your AppVM RAM.
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* System Protection
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Here you can disable Shadow Folder because it has little sense in the case of Qubes because
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* we do regular backups of AppVMs/TemplateVMs;
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* we can revert at least one template change if we break something.
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Select drives where system protection is enabled and click Configure. "Turn off system protection" "Delete all restore points"
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* Remote
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Unselect Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer.
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Task scheduler
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-----------------------
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Open the task scheduler and *disable* the following tasks.
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If you remove these tasks they may be recreated automatically by various windows management tools (such as defragmentation)
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* Autochk: All
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* Application Experience: All
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* Customer Experience Improvement Program: All
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* Defrag: All
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* DiskDiagnosis: All (the disk is virtual anyway so S.M.A.R.T. has no sense)
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* Maintenance: All
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* SystemRestore: All
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* WindowsBackup: All
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Power options
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First, enable the "Power" Windows service. Then, set all of the following:
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* Put the computer to sleep: `Never`
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* Turn the display off: `Never`
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* Turn off hard disk after: Setting (Minutes): `0`
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Turn off hibernation. Open a command prompt (`cmd.exe`) as an administrator,
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then execute:
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powercfg -h off
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The hibernation file (`C:\hyberfil.sys`) should now be deleted.
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Manual tasks that can/should be started in the template
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-------------------------------------------------------
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* Disk defragmentation
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* Windows Update
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* Windows file cleaning
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1. Run windows drive cleaner as Administrator.
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2. Enable all the task and run the cleaner
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* CCleaner file cleaning
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1. Install CCleaner free
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2. Copy the attached ccleaner configuration file in CCleaner program file folder
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3. Run ccleaner with all option set except "wipe free space" (it will also remove user history and preferences)
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4. Run ccleaner only with the option "wipe free space".
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It will write zeros in all unused space. This will allow you to strip the root.img file later
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* TemplateVM stripping
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Ensure that you know what you are doing in this section as you may destroy by error your template root.img file.
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* If you ran ccleaner with "wipe free space", follow the following procedure
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1. from dom0, go to /var/lib/templates-vm/yourtemplate
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2. copy root.img using the following command
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> cp --sparse=always root.img root.img.clean
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3. if the copy worked, you can move the new root file by running this command
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> mv root.img.clean root.img
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* If it doesn't manage to fill the free space with zeros, you can follow the following *unsafe* undocumented procedure
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1. from dom0, go to /var/lib/templates-vm/yourtemplate
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2. check the partitioning to identify the filesystem offset of root.img
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3. mount the filesystem
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4. create a file with zeros inside the filesystem until the mounted filesystem is full
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5. remove the file
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6. unmount the partition
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7. make a copy of root.img in sparse mode.
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