Reducing resource requirements for computers running virtualized Microsoft Office 2007

When you are running a sequenced version of Microsoft Office 2007 on Terminal Server clients running SoftGrid 4.1 or App-V 4.5, you may notice intermittent performance related issues.  Often these issues will disappear upon reboot but will gradually begin to reappear over time. The amount of time before the issues reappears is typically inversely proportional to the number of times the sequenced Microsoft Office 2007 package is run (i.e. the more often the package is run, the sooner you'll see the problem).

You may also see these client launch errors, especially on Terminal Servers:

xxxxxx-xxxxxx03-00001002
xxxxxx-xxxxxx0A-0000E005
xxxxxx-xxxxxx 0C-0000003C

Instead of, or in addition to these, you may also notice periodic hangs, as well as a frequent depletion of paged pool memory resources.

To prevent this issue, during the initial sequencing of Office 2007 (or via modification of the existing package) we recommend that you remove the Microsoft Office Diagnostics and Office Source Engine services from any sequenced package running Office 2007 or any sequence that includes any Office 2007 application.  This will require the removal of these virtual services under the Virtual Services Tab in the Softgrid/App-V Sequencer.

NOTE: When you are in the "Configure Applications" phase in the sequencer, we also recommend you remove the Microsoft Office Diagnostics shortcut. However, this alone will not remove the service.  

To remove the Microsoft Office Diagnostics and Office Source Engine services, click on the Virtual Services tab and right-click on Microsoft Office Diagnostics Service and Office Source Engine services and select Remove:

image

More Information:  The Microsoft Office Diagnostic Service (also referred to as the Machine Debug Manager - MDM.EXE) is designed to be a single service running as a single instance even on a multi-user Terminal Server client.  When you include this service in the package you will have a virtualized instance of the service running for every instance of the virtualized Office package active. This is unnecessary and it causes unnecessary resource utilization.

Steve Thomas | Senior Support Escalation Engineer