Recomposition of parent VM question

[jlf175]

Hi,

Our company is currently looking at VMWare View and I've come up to what is probably a pretty easy question to answer.

I am attempting the linked clone approach and so far everything is working pretty good. However, to see how the linked clone portion works I'd like to apply Windows XP SP3 to the images which are currently running SP2 for WinXP.

If I'm understanding the documentation correctly, what I must do is create a new VM Parent image in the form that I want (with SP3) similar to how I created my first base image. With that complete, I then do a recomposition of the pool to point to the new VM image which has SP3 on it and can then do away with the previous base image. Is that correct?

[knudt · Accepted solution]

All you need to do is update your parent VM with SP3. Shut down the VM and take a new snapshot.

Within View Administrator, select the Recompose and select this new snapshot. Once they're recomposing you can delete the old snapshot if you so desire, or you can keep it around in case you need to fall back to SP2.

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Brian Knudtson

vExpert, VCP, VAC

[jlf175]

Okay, I assume I need to shut down all running clients before doing this though?

[mmarinov]

Your case in the Vmware View is defined as Recomposing linked clone desktops. See the admin doc on page #118 how you can do this.

Furthermore you can read about the desktop recomposition on page #96.

In addition if you want to make the vClones clean as reverting them back to SP2 - you need refresh. This is on page # 117.

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Martin Marinov

VMware Software Engineer

[mmarinov]

I've been late with my answer.

You don't need to shut down the clients. You can schedule when you want the recomposition event to take place: check the recomposition step-by-step and especially on page 120, step 9.

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Martin Marinov

VMware Software Engineer

[knudt]

The VMs will need to be shutdown when the recomposition occurs, but this can be easily scheduled for off-hours or as soon as the user logs off. The recomposition process itself will shutdown the VM for you, it's completely automated. Just sit back and watch the magic occur!

Do note that the recomposition process can take awhile due to the Customizing process, which should be similar to what you saw when first deploying the pool.

_{If you find this or any other post helpful, please award points. Also mark thread as answered if question was answered successfully.}

Brian Knudtson

vExpert, VCP, VAC