I want to introduce an old presentation that published by Teradici at 2010 but you don’t think that it has old information, you can see it and learn about Windows 7 optimization in VDI environment. Of curse, there is many optimization tools and documents such as VMware OS Optimization Tool but it’s useful yet. You can download it via this link: https://techsupport.teradici.com/ics/support/DLRedirect.asp?fileNum=143&deptID=15164 You need to create a Teradici account for download it.
I have made a registry file based on PCoIP recommendation for apply on all virtual desktops in our company 2 years ago. The settings covers image quality, bandwidth, analog sound channel and USB permission. You can apply the below configuration on your template ad there is no need to apply configuration on Zero Clients: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Teradici\PCoIP\pcoip_admin_defaults] “pcoip.transport_session_priority”=dword:00000001 “pcoip.server_clipboard_state”=dword:00000001 “pcoip.enable_build_to_lossless”=dword:00000000 “pcoip.max_link_rate”=dword:00015f90 “pcoip.mtu_size”=dword:00000514 “pcoip.device_bandwidth_floor”=dword:00002710 “pcoip.enable_audio”=dword:00000001 “pcoip.enable_micin_noise_filter”=dword:00000001 “pcoip.audio_bandwidth_limit”=dword:000001f4 “pcoip.usb_auth_table”=”23XXXXXX” “pcoip.usb_unauth_table”=”2208XXXX” “pcoip.minimum_image_quality”=dword:00000032 “pcoip.maximum_initial_image_quality”=dword:0000005a “pcoip.maximum_frame_rate”=dword:0000000f “pcoip.use_client_img_settings”=dword:00000001 “pcoip.image_cache_size_mb”=dword:0000012c You can change MTU size, sound bandwidth and bandwidth floor regarding to your network bandwidth. Our users are happy with the above configurations and I think, these settings are fine for any LAN environment. You can read VMware KB and VMware Network Optimization for more information and optimize your platform. [quotes_and_tips]
Deploying Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 templates with vmxnet3 renames the NIC as #2 The above subject is VMware KB 1020078 and I think, you should apply this hotfixes on your templates when you have Windows 7 and Windows 2008. You can download the hotfixes from these links: For Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 7 versions prior to Service Pack 1, install the hotfix described in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 2344941 before deploying the template. For Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 7 versions post Service Pack 1, install the hotfix described in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article2550978 before deploying the template Read the VMware KB for more information. [quotes_and_tips]
I had a problem on some of our View Connection servers, the servers consumed high CPU and memory and View Connection Server service had crashed after some hours. As I checked on View debug logs (VMware View log files location), the issue was related to Java and a bug on Windows 2008 R2/R2 SP1: I found a published Hotfix about the issue on Microsoft support site: Kernel sockets leak on a multiprocessor computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 I suggest that install the hotfix on your current servers and new servers to preventing that on your server because if the server is a security server, your users’ connection will be disconnected.
Firmware 4.8 is released by Teradici for Tera2 Zero clients and new firmware has new feature for RDS applications. Users be able to load RDS applications on zero client and there is no need to load any OS. This feature very useful for using the devices in some public locations such as libraries, for example you can install your book finder application on a RDS server and add it to your connection server, then your subscribers can access to this app without loading that via any OS. You can download the firmware via Teradici support site. But as I mentioned before, this firmware is released for Tera2 generation.
When you have cloned a virtual machine from another and customization is failed or machine ID is not changed during customization, both virtual machines trying to communicate with connection server and you face with “Agent Disabled” status on View manager portal because View server ignores conflict messages. You need to remove the below key from the registry after removing View Agent: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\ Then reinstall View Agent on the machine. [quotes_and_tips]
VMware View offers two basic pools for create and manage virtual desktops, “Automated Pool” and “Manual Pool”. Each of them has own benefits. “Automated Pool” has better management features and “Manual Pool” has more flexibility. You can create virtual machines within a “Automated Pool” and the virtual machines will be created based on a pattern or manual name from a template. In other hand, you able to add virtual desktops that created from different templates, with different name pattern and from different vCenter folders to a “Manual Pool”.Some times, you have to remove some virtual machines from a pool or you have to add an existing virtual machines to a “Automated Pool”, but you can’t replace deleted virtual machines with new virtual machines with same name on a “Automated Pool” with specific naming pattern and you can’t add any existing virtual machines from vCenter to that. There is a solution that you can convert your “Automated Pool” to a “Manual Pool” temporary and add your virtual machines to that. Then you can convert that to “Automated Pool” again. In this case, I’ve created an automated pool with pattern naming (Test) and one VM is created in the pool (VM-1) ....
Some times, you need to know some things about devices that your users are connected to their virtual machines by them. For example, you need to Zero Client IP address for changing some configurations on that or need to its MAC address for changing some ACL on your switches and router. Some information storing in virtual machine registry under “Current User” registry hive when VMware View session is established. You can check them in virtual machine registry directly and use them for the above situations or other situations. I’ve developed an application that it can do it for you. VCD (View Client Device Detector) can retrieve the information from registry easily and even, your users can use that and send needed information to you by use “Copy to clipboard” feature.The application will run automatically on start-up and you can find its notify icon beside of Windows clock. It’s compatible with 32/64 bit of any Windows just you need to .Net Framework 2.0 and above. *Windows XP (Figure 1) – Windows 7 (Figure 2) Click to download I’ve developed that in 2012.
Finally, VMware Horizon View 5.3 is available and you can download that from this link. Some new features are added to this product by VMware: 3D graphics with virtual dedicated graphics acceleration (vDGA) Improved Real-Time Audio-Video experience and performance Enhancement to mobility features in HTML5 and Unity Touch Windows 8.1 support VMware® ThinApp® 5.0 Combining View with VMware Horizon Mirage™ 4.3 Reduce storage with VMware Virtual San™ (VSAN) beta Support for Windows Server 2008 for virtual desktops View Agent Direct Connection (VADC) All of the features are awesome. You can deliver better experiences to your users by new graphic acceleration even for gaming, reduce your application management by ThinApp 5.0 that this new version supporting 64 bit applications. Use your local disk as SAN storage by vSAN and reduce cost. vSAN is introducde with vSphere 5.5. New plugin is very useful when you need to use a virtual desktop as dashboard, you can access to disjoined virtual desktop or login to more than one virtual desktops by that same as RDP sessions. I recommend, use this new version of View, if you have a plan for deploy virtual desktops. in new site
Using Windows Server 2008 R2 as a desktop is a new feature in VMware Horizon View 5.3. I thought that the new feature is like Teradici Arch but It should be differrent. You able to connect to your virtual desktops in a terminal service pool via PCoIP by Teradici Arch. But it seems, you can connect to a Windows Server via PCoIP in new version of View. You need to enable that manually (I’ve read a same article on myvirtualcloud.net about hacking in VMware View 5.x ) on your View server, also you don’t have some features: Smart card SSO on Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtual printing (ThinPrint) Multimedia redirection (MMR) Unified Communications (UC) APIs Microsoft Lync 2013 SDK View Persona Management vCenter Operations Manager functionality Local-mode desktops As I know, View Agent can’t work in multi session mode, so I think, it’s another feature that not supported and you can not connect to a Window Server in multi session mode by View like RDP session.
To obtain a list of services that are currently registered to SSO: Log into the vCenter Server as an administrator. Open a Windows Command Prompt. Navigate to the %Program Files%\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\ssolscli directory. Note: The default directory path to the ssolscli.cmd is C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\ssolscli. Run this command: SET JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\jre Note: Verify the path first. The listed path is default, but this can be C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\jre1 after multiple installs. To create a text file with a list of the services registered with SSO, run this command: ssolscli.cmd listServices https://FQDN:7444/lookupservice/sdk > c:\sso_services.txt To open the text file that contains the list of registered services, run this command:notepad c:\sso_services.txt You can see an example of the file:
I had a big problem on last week for upgrade my clients View Agent from 5.0 to 5.1. We are using Windows XP 64-bit form 2 years ago for our Call Center’s clients and I have a plan for upgrade my View servers from 5.1 to 5.2, so I have to upgrade View agents t0 5.1 for compatibility with View 5.2 at least. As you may know, this OS is not supporting by View agent officially but View agent 4.6, 5.0 and 5.1 can working on that properly. I had upgrade from 4.6 to 5.0 before but I faced with some issues in test step and wrote a script for upgrade agents completely silent. First Step, Prepare Client for View Agent Installation First, I want to mention that if you have plan for deploy the agent by SCCM, you should forget that, because it’s impossible. Anyway, you have 3 issues that you should resolve them to do silent installation: First step, copy your installation data and scripts to a shared folder with everyone access. Second step, if you have very secure environment like me that administrative share is disabled on that by your security manager, you have to enable it via registry....
