VMware Horizon Community
iforbes
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Horizon RDSH Apps

Hi. Hopefully this is an easy question. If I choose to deliver apps via Horizon RDSH (no App Volumes involved), can DEM be used to capture user specific app settings? So, if I launch an RDSH Adobe app, make app config changes and close out the app, will my app config changes be captured via DEM, so next time I launch the app those changes persist?

 

Thanks

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi @iforbes,

Sure, that works just fine.

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iforbes
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Thanks! I've used DEM before to capture "baked in" apps. Just wasn't certain if RDSH presented apps could also get captured. Is there an up-to-date techzone article or doc that outlines how DEM and RDSH apps are configured?

Also, is there direction around anti-virus and RDSH applications? For example, is running Windows Defender on the RDSH server(s) sufficient?

Cheers

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi @iforbes,

DEM doesn't really behave any differently for published apps. Those apps run inside an "invisible" RDS session, and the DEM agent just performs its normal actions during logon of that session, within that session (DirectFlex imports and exports, for instance), and once the session is logged off at some point.

I'm not aware of any particular guidance on Tech Zone regarding published apps, probably because none is required 🙂

iforbes
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Thanks! You've been very helpful. Last question. I know that App Stacks can be integrated with RDSH. Is there any advantage of presenting RDSH apps via App Stacks, vs simply just presenting apps solely through RDSH?

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sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

You can only assign appstacks to an RDSH host for all users, you can't really do user logons. Doing appstacks cuts down on the number of parent images you may need, unless you have different farms there isn't that much of a difference.

iforbes
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Are you saying that since AppStacks are entitled to an RDSH server (vs user entitlements) that we can't get the same granularity of user entitlements that we can via RDSH only apps? Just trying to understand what you mean by all users would be assigned the AppStack.

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sjesse
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I worded that poorly, there are two kinds of attachments, user and computer based assignments. Computer assignments are done when the comptuer starts up, user ones are done on logon. Remember how appstacks work, they are stored in virtual disks, and are attached to the virtual machine when needed. For user desktops that is fine, but for RDSH servers all users appstacks could be seen by others, and they may even interact. 

 

 

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iforbes
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Hmmm. Are you saying that with AppStack RDSH apps, we cannot maintain user entitlement granularity? When the AppStack is "imported" into the RDSH farm, can we not entitlement the individual apps per user/group?

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sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

No.  look at this

 

https://techzone.vmware.com/resource/app-volumes-architecture#rdsh-integration-with-packages

 

"

App Volumes supports package integration with Microsoft RDSH-published desktops and published applications. Packages are assigned to RDSH servers rather than directly to users. Packages are attached to the RDSH server when the machine is powered on and the App Volumes service starts. Users are then entitled to the RDSH-published desktops or applications through the Horizon entitlement process.

Note: Writable volumes are not supported with RDSH assignments.

Consider associating packages at the OU level in Active Directory, rather than to individual computer objects. This practice reduces the number of package entitlements and ensures packages are always available as new hosts are created and existing hosts are refreshed."

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cfuguy
Contributor
Contributor

I can verify that this works fine.. but keep in mind that the 1st time a user launches a Horizon Client connection to one of your apps.. it's going to take significantly longer as all of the DEM stuff is loaded up. The next app you open will be pretty much instantaneous.. but yeah.. it's a thing. 

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