Owing to how linked and Instant Clone desktops work, it is important to remember that they should not be managed using the same techniques as a typical virtual machine. Some examples of this include the following:

• If you were to apply software patches to linked clones individually, rather than using a recompose operation, the linked clone virtual hard disks would grow significantly over time. This defeats the storage efficiency that is one of the primary reasons for choosing linked clones. Additionally, deploying patches to Instant Clone desktops would be pointless, as any changes are erased when the user logs off.
• Recompose, refresh, and rebalance operations all change the state of the linked clone virtual desktop, which can affect utilities such as indexing programs. If these operations lead to resource-intensive operations, such as a file index, every time they occur, it may be that they need to be disabled or have their behavior altered. This topic is discussed further in Chapter 10, Creating a Master Virtual Desktop Image.

• Instant Clones currently support Windows 7 and Windows 10 only, require that View Storage Accelerator be enabled, and the Instant Clone option must have been selected during the Horizon agent installation process described in Chapter 10, Creating a Master Virtual Desktop Image.

Generally speaking, you should approach managing instant and linked clone desktops from the master image wherever possible as this enables you to realize most of the advantages of linked clones. If a proposed change can be done on the master image, and then rolled out to users using a recompose operation, that is the preferred method of working with linked clones, and the only way to work with Instant Clones. Chapter 9, Performing Horizon Pool Maintenance, will provide more information about how to manage linked and Instant Clone desktops.