Advice - View Client on re-purposed PC's

[JoeShmoe]

If we wanted to take old XP desktop PC's and repuprose them as thin clients what's the best/accepted way to enable a view client on these devices and retain all key functions such as DNS, DHCP etc?

Are there available Linux distributions for example that include the View client? Or is there a better option (PXE boot etc). Appreciate any advice as new to View/Thin clients

[scottsb45]

Thanks for the info!

Well so far I have a machine loaded with Windows Thin PC on it. I have VM view client 5.0 loaded and have made changes to registry so the computer boots up to a black screen with the VMware client connection box. Also, applied a script so that if a user were to close the connection box, it will open again instead of having a black screen.

So next on my list are these items:

1.) Registry key to avoid SSL certificate check when making the connection to the VMware server.

2.) Disable Ctrl+Alt+Dlt

3.) Not sure if this is possible, but make it so the machine loads a certain VM in the pool by default.

Sergei (or anyone else) if you have the time to give me any tips on the steps above and maybe any other security tips, such as disabling access to the C drive and anything else pertitent, that would be great. Nice to make some progress though:)

Thanks,

-Scott

[Sergei13]

My understanding is :

If you want to play a machine localy with View, you have to set up the infrastructure for local sessions with a reference repository where to take a copy of the machine and then download it to your local computer. I am not sure how this works though, never played with it.

If I understand you well, what you are willing to do with a machine stored on the local hard driver is closer to the VMware player with an VM availaible on the local hard disk.

Otherwise, I am pretty sure it is not possible to start the View client and automatically run a default machine. You have to go thru the authentication and then, even if there is only one pool available, you will have to select it (to bad, I know, but that's the way it is. Btw, this works with Zero Client :smileymischief:)

From the top of my head, there is indeed a registry key to avoid checking the ssl stuff but I can't remember. I am sure google will do the job ... (actually http://vinfrastructure.it/en/2011/12/vmware-view-5-certificate-warning/ quoting [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\Client\Security] “CertCheckMode”=”0″)

As far as ctrl+alt+del in concern, the only way I found to disable it from the soure computer is thru a local GPO that I saved from my setup machine and copy to the new computer while setting it up (together with disabling task manager, access to c drive etc). I didn't find a way to do it with a domain GPO.

Hope this helps.