Serial port missing with linked clones and Wyse thin clients

[pharmer]

We are using Wyse V10L with VMware View 3.1 and linked clones

The master image has serial ports and when connecting to the master via RDP from a Wyse client - serial ports are OK

However, any clone created from the master show no serial ports in device manager

I have tried multiple masters to eliminate any issue with a single build (XP SP3)

Is there no support for serial ports in a linked clone?

Anyone know?

[pharmer]

Solved the issue.

The bios of the master XP machine had serial ports set enabled and auto - this works fine for this image only.

When cloned by composer however the ports in the linked clone go "missing" even though the bios for the clone still says ports are enabled and auto

The solution is to set the master to enabled and manual IRQ for serial ports, then the linked clones have the same settings and ports appear under XPs device manager

[pharmer]

Hmmm... may have been a bit hasty thinking I had a resolution. After another refresh com ports are missing from the linked clone again.

I have now opened a case with VMware

screenshot of Master image BIOS

screenshot of Linked clone BIOS

[ditro2001]

I ran into the same issue? What does VMware told you?

[pharmer]

The official word I got was this is not supported in linked clones

So if you want serial ports in your VM you will have to use thick provisioned variety as individual desktops

[ditro2001]

So If you use thick provisioned VMs it is possible?