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kgottleib
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vSphere Web Client is so bad that my experience managing and supporting VMware has turn to....

Purpose of this post is simple and obvious...  bring back development to thick client.  THANKS!

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unsichtbare
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I would like to reiterate:

How can an infrastructure vendor (VMware) deploy a client that they have no control over? We need to have a reasonable expectation of being able to access our environment from day to day.

  • Are we to leave the access to our infrastructure in the hands of Google, Mozilla and Microsoft?

What happens tomorrow, if all my exchange server is down and I can't access vSphere because Chrome is updated?

+The Invisible Admin+ If you find me useful, follow my blog: http://johnborhek.com/
dennisluvm
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Hi hostasaurus,

1) Another thing you might be able to try in 6.5 is the Host Client, by going to https://[host-ip]/ui

2) Are you able to provide the OVF to us?  Or maybe the product name/version number and then I might be able to track it down directly with EMC.  If you want to provide it, please send me a direct message here and we can work out the details.

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CollinChaffin
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OMG I could not AGREE with you MORE!  Whomever at VMware is responsible for the overall management of the product group that ultimately led to the approval of moving away from a real C# client for this ABOMINATION should be walked out the door and literally never work another day in this industry!  I'm approaching my 30yrs in the business and I have literally NEVER seen another large company make such idiotic decisions with the key being for such a SUSTAINED period of time like this. Idiotic decisions, yes.....but not like THIS.   I've been a serious VMware evangelist as a consultant since it's first workstation releases before the old VMX server was a twinkle in anyone's eye, and back then this abomination web client would not have even been an option on the table.  Only after the company went public did these horrible directions begin coming out of the company.

Wait, what?  You mean we can have a crappy ass web page that depending on our browser looks and functions differently on every machine, sometimes won't function at all leaving us locked out of our ENTERPRISE infrastructures.....oh and that takes an HOUR just to find the g0dd@m half-page that finally has the friggin fields that were find-able in 10 sec without help in the C# client - and give me a reason to take 10 times the time to perform my critical troubleshooting tasks ultimately single-handedly making me 1/10th as productive?!?  Sure, friggin sign me up, VMware!

P.S. VMware - Not a SINGLE Vmware engineer I know does not STILL TO THIS DAY not only have the "depreciated" C# client INSTALLED, but right up until they MUST open the web client EVERY ONE OF THEM that I know do what I do and that is cheat and use the C# client whenever possible......and THAT should speak VOLUMES in support of changing this idiotic direction.  You want a cute, supposedly thin, install-free web client - fine - build it.  But put it there knowing it will ALWAYS be secondary...because if you build that.....we will NOT come. Smiley Happy

...I'm with the OP....and so much so that I may seriously use CLI, API, and PowerCLI and try to just write my own friggin C# client again myself, if VMware continues to refuse to listen to their own customers (and no, CUSTOMERS did NOT ask for this P.O.S. I know a TON of VMware engineers and the vast MAJORITY also HATE this web client) because I seriously just had to spend over 15 MINUTES digging through the eighty dimensions of the web abomination today, just to find a single tab that for alarms that was front and center in the C# client.

unsichtbare
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6.5 is getting closer to being fully functional, with OVF/OVA issues slowly being resolved, however, there are still MAJOR issues with permissions.

Nevertheless, even if 6.5 were 100% functional, I would still hesitate to recommend upgrading due to the fact that every single operation in the Web Client takes much longer and VMware admins are much less efficient in the Web Client than in the C# Client.

+The Invisible Admin+ If you find me useful, follow my blog: http://johnborhek.com/
gracman
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Hey Dennis,

I am sure you and VMware are tracking this thread. Let it be known that I will not upgrade our company's VMware infrastructure past 6.0 until you have a 100% working client solution. This half baked approach to upgrading clients for production enterprise systems is unprofessional. If you do not have a working solution and we need to upgrade then I will look at replacing VMware as our infrastructure management system. If your company wants to continue to lose money then continue down your current path.

Regards.

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iamxCPx
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We are still with 5.5 because of this reason. I refused to upgrade.

Are you (@gracman) saying I can upgrade to at least 6 and still able to use the C# client?

How about the VM version? What's the latest VM version would still work with C# client? Smiley Happy

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gracman
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It depends on your usability needs. The C# client still works with 6.0 all updates but some features are web client only. Our build 5318203.

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Howiedog
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Another customer that will (potentially) be leaving.

Currently on v6.0.0 and will also be staying here for the foreseeable future, unless you come out with the c# FAT CLIENT?

If you continue to ignore your customers, then all I can say is F U vmware.

Waste of time, can't even locate a fucking alarm. What takes 6 sec in fat client, ....1/2hour in web client...and still fucking around trying to get shit to work.

F U V M W A R E

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dennisluvm
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Hi Howiedog,

Could you describe the issue further?  Screenshots always help.  Are you having trouble with:

a) Finding an alarm definition, to edit it

b) Finding an alarm that's been triggered, to find more information about the issue

c) Finding the object the alarm triggered on

d) Something else?

As stated, screenshots always help, especially of your workflow on the desktop client so we can understand what you're doing today thoroughly.

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Supermop2000
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I can't believe its 2017 and we still have to put up with this abortion of a web client and it's STILL Adobe Flash based?

I've tried it on IE and Firefox so far and it doesnt work (we're on 6.0). Moans about flash, which I won't install.

Having to use the severely limited, but still much better fat client.

Please VMWare, we will settle for nothing less than updating the fat client - if you insist on a web version, fine, but you NEED a fat client to manage this infrastructure. This is the life blood of some business, and web is unprofessional, unreliable, slow and badly coded. It relies on the work of others (i.e. Mircrosoft, Google, Mozilla) - and these browsers are notorious for introducing new features, or removing old features in the name of security.

You have created yourselves a nightmare scenario - this would have been fine if you had continued to develop the fat client.

iamxCPx
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Thanks!!

Anyone at the VMworld now and going to ask this at the round table? I'd like to be there and hear what they have to say. Smiley Happy

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vijayrana968
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Has anyone tried this ! vSphere HTML5 Web Client

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IGaLaXyI
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So yeah, I also want to give my 2 cents to this nightmare...

At the moment flash is only working in firefox without issues. Chrome, IE and Edge are just having problems (running 6.5)...

To create a VM from a Template i needed like one minute in the fat client. In the Browser I would go faster with hmtl, but the html client isn't ready at all, so I have to use that flash crap.

So you go to your Browser and want to create the VM an what - oh nooooo, I didn't do anything in it for a longer time, so I have to login agin first (yeah taking like 2 minutens!!! -.-). After that I need like 10 Minutes to create a VM and sometimes your Browser just crashes and you could threw your monitor out of the window...

Other nice thing is the screen scaling of Windows 10. I was at home and wanted to do soemthing on a VM with that new VMware Remote console (vmrc). On a notebook screen with 100% scaling, it's all kind of little. So I changed the scaling to 125%. Then I started my browser, loggeed in (html) and startet the vmrc. The problem now was that I couldn't click correctly in the VM. My mouse was somewhere else and I couldn't work... A reboot fixed that issue. So I'm not shure if it's a Microsoft or VMware problem. But changing the scaling in Windows never caused issues like that on any program - it's sometimes just a litle blurry...

Well I think why VMware is going this step is Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mirosoft Azure and so on. VMware just made on huge mistake and lost the train for cloud. In Germany you have a kinda different market for cloud, but in many other countries everybody is jumping into the cloud more and more. Cloud is on such a hype that some people say that in 10 years everything is in cloud. And why is it like that? Because you don't need that best educated person to manage all your systems. In AWS for example, it is soooo easy to create systems, setting firewall permissions and so on. I did this a litle time ago and was surprised how easy it was... Just try it, you can create an account for free and test a little bit - and oohh guys, you will like that webapp haha 😄
IMHO VMware want to build something like that. They may want to tell you: Look at AWS or Azure - there you can only go directly in the cloud hosted by them. On VMware you can use our VMware cloud, but also use your local datacenters wordlwide and manage all this over one single nice web client... I think this is the goal, VMware is heading... Imagine bulding own VMs with templates locally and pushing them worldwide to datacenters from vmware, or your own other datacenters in the world, so that your worldwide customers can have the best performance (cause of regional systems). Imagine you can even migrate them live between the world. You could rely on infrastructure from vmware, or when you don't want that for specific or all vms, use your own hardware. How nice would that be? A fat client for a cloud service wouldn't fit to this idea...

And when you watch aws etc. it's really no problem to manage this via a brwoser. You can use any browser without problems... So the point is, that it's possible to build a web cient which works and the advantages are huge, because you have no dependencies on operating systems, hardware etc. You just have to support some browsers...

The html client from VMware is really nice. It works perfectly, is fast and easy to use. I also like the new vmrc - you can create Shortcuts and put them into folders to share it with business colleagues and also put this shortcuts into wikis, documents etc. This is awesome! You just need that little vmrc for that users and they can open the VM so easy, without logging in a web or fat client directly and search for the vm.

So it's not that bad what VMware is doing. Wishing the fat client back is bullsh**!

But here is the problem: VMware, you see I like your approve but why the hell do you release a new version of vSphere with a not finished html client, to force your customers to use flash in 2017?! This is so ridiculous - I mean, are you f****** serious!!!!???? Every process takes so much more time. You wanted to realeas the final html client with 6.5, but could'nt achieve this - OK, I'm fine that's no problem, it can happen... But why the hell you don't let the people use the fat client one version more? Whyyy??? Why the helll?? I mean you can conenct via the fat client to esx hosts with 6.5 without a problem - so you can't tell me, that it wouldn't be possible to connect to a vcenter with 6.5?!

Nobody here can understand this... And so many people stay at older versions... And I can tell you people: Just wait until the html client is released.. You can safely go to 6.0 and do nearly everything with the fat client - for your daily work, you don't need the flash client. But don't go to 6.5 it's a crappy mess and you will cry...

jperez2014
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I just went from 6.0 to 6.5. I dont mind the learning curve ,however i am having a problem with one thing. the only thing we mostly used was the desktop client and we used to click on the host>Configuration>Networking. From there we used to see all VMs on that host along with what network and NICs that were a part of that network.........For the LOVE of Tina the LAMA please help me find that view in 6.5 web client.

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dennisluvm
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Hi jperez2014,

Thank you for the specific feedback.  I will pass this onto our owner for this area to help boost the priority.

I think we're already working on this view, but networking is a very large area so it could take a while.  Obviously we can't make promises of when it will show up, but it would definitely show up in the Fling first: https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vsphere-html5-web-client#changelog

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didou691
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Hello, My experiense with a small site : 3 hosts vmware essential plus 6.5

Actually, the only working flash web client is [Windows] Internet explorer, not even edge.Firefox with flash hangs randomly, even with clean profiles an fress install.

- [Windows] vmrc plugin is needed. html console, with a french keyboard is a joke.

- Experience with Linux browser is in progress with HTML5 but still unusable cause of HTML VM consoles.

So why replace a [Windows] Fast, easy, reliable tool C# client with a SLOW Browser tool  full of [Windows] required plugins ?

Please, Give us back the thick client. Nothing to gain with the web interface.

hyvokar
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Seems that you cannot sort your VMs after Host CPU, Host MEM or Status. Handy "feature" again.

vcenter 6.5 build 4944578.

I just have to say, that this vmware webshit is a gift that just keeps on giving. It's truly made managing servers a living hell and wont be forgotten when we are deciding what to buy next.

dennisluvm
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Hi hyvokar,

Can you provide a few more details:

1) Which views are you interested in being able to do this on specifically: [vCenter] -> VMs, [Datacenter] -> VMs, etc?  There are very strong performance considerations depending on the view.

2) Is this happening in the Flash based vSphere Web Client?

3) Is this happening in the HTML5 based vSphere Client?

hostasaurus
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And thanks to who knows what, I'm now unable to access vCenter 6.5 from Chrome...

Screen Shot 2017-10-15 at 12.25.56 PM.png

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JMachieJr
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I am experiencing the same exact issue after updating to 6.5. I have issues with Firefox as well.

VCP-DCV | MCP | Linux+ Twitter: @James_Machie_Jr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmachiejr
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