Focusing on applications and ignoring the desktop will at the end, fail the virtualization approch to the desktop areas… We need as architects to deliver a well packaged solution, easy to use and natural off course, so the user will continue to work better than before with more freedom and collborativ way, i think!

I have many of my clients asking me the same question, Why do we need to virtualize the desktop? why not just review the solution for the application…

the user interface and experience is the most important aspect of progressing productivity and will not be achieved if skipping the desktop layer.

so I completely agree with you Dan

keep the good work

cheers

For ESX, I start out under-commited and work my way up. I closely monitor ballooning and host swapping to determine an appropriate % of over commitment for each customer.

For this kinds of deployments I always consider a Mix of Hosted Desktops / VDI Desktops, and deliver VDI desktops only to users that truly need a full VDI desktop (3D pro graphics, old legacy hardware attached, or legacy software that only works on old XP/W7 machines)…. For the rest, Hosted Desktops is better than VDI.
With only one Hosted Desktop Server (as XenApp), its easy to provide more than 256 Desktops without great problems.

In my experience, these visual effects changes directly in the registry never gets actually applied !
Is there a a trick for this , or maybe I am missing something ?

However, I would like to add 2 points on the topic:

The use of virus is not always a choice, particularly in the Enterprise world.
For example, if you need to follow the PCI SSC Data Security Standards, you will have to run an antivirus on every endpoint virtual or not.

On a positive note, Antivirus vendors start to make an real effort to adapt their product to Virtualize environment.

Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 for example introduce a feature (Shared Insight Cache Server) that allow clients to share scan results.
It will create a white list of safe files that clients will not have to re-scan on multiple VMs.

McAfee create MOVE that is specially targeted for Virtualized environment (the antivirus work is done by an appliance seating on the host) and, as Wakelake said, Thread Micro create an antivirus that work with the VMware WMSafe API.

I believe that it is worst it to review the progress made by security vendors and apply a solution that fit your Virtual world.

Sources:
PCI DSS v2
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/pci_dss_v2.pdf
Symantec Virtualization Best Practice
http://www.symantec.com/connect/sites/default/files/Virtualization_Best_Practices.pdf
McAfee MOVE
http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/solution-briefs/sb-anti-virus-optimized-virtualized-environments.pdf

Dedicated performance, think users who have exceptionally high CPU requirements and aren’t willing to accept the caveats of sbc siloing. XD on hardware or dedicated performance vm’s work well.

Developers, developers need user installed apps and also quite like to snapshot and restore their own machines.