VMware Horizon Community
gwebb6
Contributor
Contributor

PCoIP and Windows 7: Screen lock and unlock questions

We have a Windows 7 Pro 64-bit VM, running over PCoIP to a zero client. Everything works great (except for no Aero ). The VM is on a domain.

One thing I noticed is when I lock my screen, there is a ~5 second delay until it locks (by either WIN + L, or (Ctrl + Alt + Del ) +Enter). I expect a few users to complain for a few weeks until they accept it. This is minor, but does anyone know a way to fix this?

Another issue that will generate more complaints is in unlocking the screen. For the user to unlock the screen, they press Ctrl + Alt + Del, then they have to click on their user name (an icon with localdoman/userID as the user name), then type in their password. In a physical envirometnt, they don't have to click on their user name after Ctrl + Alt + Del. The problem does not exist in client mode, only PCoIP. Why does it do this? How can this be fixed?

We are running View 4.5 with the VM on ESXi 4.0.

Thanks!

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14 Replies
gwebb6
Contributor
Contributor

Bump. If no one has a solution, does anyone else at least experience the same thing?

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grossag
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

There isn't anything we can do about the lock delay. All our code can do is call Windows's LockWorkstation() function, which tends to take a little while, which is understandably annoying.

As far as the entering their username, I'm not sure what is going on there. VMware's SSO component isn't active at this time so I am thinking that this is just a Windows tuning issue. I don't have any advice on how to fix this though. PCoIP is a console protocol so Windows does its session management and logon behavior as though it's a user just sitting at their local machine.

gwebb6
Contributor
Contributor

It's been about 8 months since I brought this up.  Have there been any new developments?  The screen unlock is particularly annoying for our users.

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grossag
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

For the lock issue you mentioned, I don't think we'll ever fix that.  But as I've used Windows 7 more I've found that it happens natively as well, depending on my CPU load.

For the unlock issue, I did some investigation today and this is a result of how Windows handles credential providers.  As a result, it is very unlikely that we will fix this.  On the original login, our SSO credential provider is actually doing the login so Windows remembers that our credential provider did the login.  So when the user locks and unlocks the remote desktop, it won't reselect the Windows password credential provider like you want it to, because the VMware credential provider did the last login.  Messing around with the registry to fool Windows into doing it otherwise is too dangerous.  FWIW, RDP behaves similarly.

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MindTheGreg
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

gwebb6 wrote:

then they have to click on their user name (an icon with localdoman/userID as the user name)

I dealt with a similar issue. In my instance it was because the RDP window wasn't active. I switched from an RDP session that auto-started when you turned on the thin client to having the user start the session which elliminated that extra click. This was not with View but might be applicable.

Set-Annotation -CustomAttribute "The Impossible" -Value "Done and that makes us mighty"
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ktjamm
Contributor
Contributor

My users are complaining about this issue as well. I'm going to look into a way to work around it. I'll post anything I come up with.

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riki78
Contributor
Contributor

Hi

we have the same issue and our users are confused with this :smileymischief:

Have anyone found a solution workaround or fix?

Regards

Simon

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lfgomez
Contributor
Contributor

We started seeing this after we upgraded to Horizon View 5.2.

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UnityGuy
Contributor
Contributor

We also started seeing this immediately after upgrading to Horizon View 5.2.

On Win 7sp1 64-bit machines there is a ~5 second delay from the time you press Ctrl+Alt+Ins and the time the login screen appears. It happens every time, fresh off a reboot even. This behavior did not occur on 5.1.

Any one have any ideas?

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mpryor
Commander
Commander

UnityGuy wrote:

We also started seeing this immediately after upgrading to Horizon View 5.2.

On Win 7sp1 64-bit machines there is a ~5 second delay from the time you press Ctrl+Alt+Ins and the time the login screen appears. It happens every time, fresh off a reboot even. This behavior did not occur on 5.1.

Any one have any ideas?

With regards to the change between 5.1 and 5.2, this is a known issue that has been raised with VMware support teams. There is a slight delay, approximately 3 seconds, that has been introduced in the 5.2.0 agent due to some additional local mode SSO checks that fire even when the machine is not checked out. While I cannot discuss specifics of future releases, we do intend to fix this issue. Note that this is unrelated to the original posts on the thread concerning older versions.

Mike

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FBlanchet
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here.

I also have a second ctrl-alt-del introduced when reconnecting. This result in having this screen: (Instead of the desktop)

Lock this Workstation

Log off
Change Password

Task Manager

Cancel

We are using ESX 5.1 with View 5.2

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jsintz
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

mpryor wrote:

With regards to the change between 5.1 and 5.2, this is a known issue that has been raised with VMware support teams. There is a slight delay, approximately 3 seconds, that has been introduced in the 5.2.0 agent due to some additional local mode SSO checks that fire even when the machine is not checked out. While I cannot discuss specifics of future releases, we do intend to fix this issue. Note that this is unrelated to the original posts on the thread concerning older versions.

Mike

Any updates on when this will be fixed? We are delaying our roll-out because too many of our pilot/test users are complaining about this delay.

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riki78
Contributor
Contributor

Hello

The delay in entering the ctrl-alt-del in 5.2 will be fixed in view 5.2.1 in September.

Best Regards

Simon

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EricNichols
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Here is how we resolved the extra user clicking step:

https://communities.vmware.com/message/2330957#2330957

Like grossag mentions, its dangerous. I hope something like I have jurry rigged is offered as a GPO option in future agent releases.

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