VMare Desktop non-persistent

[ditro2001]

Hello together,

I'm new to the VMware View thing...is it possible to create an individiul desktop for an non-persistent desktop?

I think of the following. I need a few desktops where a user can log in but after he logged off the desktop turns into its original state. - Like with VMware ACE.

regards

[TheKubMI]

When setting up your non-persistent pool you have an option to check "power off and delete VM after first use". Provided you have the automatic provisioning enabled the system should return (actually rebuild) to its original state.

[ditro2001]

okay..

but only rebuild...not like in ace where the user logs off and every change is not being written to hard disk.

so you can theoretically log in within the next second.

[TheKubMI]

Well you can always allocate +1 desktops in your pool so there is always one ready and waiting. That way when you sign out, View will destroy the 1st VM and when you connect a second later you will use the 2nd one, and as you use the 2nd one View will rebuild the first.

If that is not what you want you can with in vCenter specify a VM to have a non-persistent hard disk which will behave the way you describe. Though I would imagine that is not something that is supported with View so you would have to manage that machine just like a normal VM (vCenter) and not use the tools that View provides. Users should still be able to connect to the system fine with RDP (not the view client).

[ditro2001]

Okay...

I got it...I think your described way is a good solution.

If I use a normal machine with RDP I do not have the USB redirection and the MMR -> so this won't work

[TAFVMWare]

Well, this poses an interesting question. What about setting the hard disk in the VM settings after the VM is created to be non-persistant? That way everytime the VM is reset the hard disk is reset to its original condition. Has anyone played with this in View? Will this not work with View?

Ty

[tough_siberian_]

In general - it works, though it requires additional configuration to be performed. Couple of things have to be considered:

1) Resetting of hard disk content happens only after VM is powered off, so some sort of script has to be used which guarantees powering VM off after logout. This shouldn't present any difficulties if user performs intended logout. But if logout is performed by View Manager based on timeout after disconnection or administrative session termination, then one should double check if this power-off script is actually executing.

2) Using this technique on individual desktop or manual desktop pool is pretty simple - disk has to be manually put into non-persistent mode only after virtual machine is completely ready (customized). But for automatic pools additional tricks have to be implemented - you cannot have non-persistent disk on a template since each desktop VM cloned from this template will loose its customization after first power off event. So template disk should be at persistent state and each desktop VM at the end of customization process has to be automatically switched off and this VM's disk setting has to be changed to non-persistent. As I see it - it is not so trivial to automatize this sequence and trigger it on a right time but it is possible.

[serinfbco]

Hi! It's exactly what we need and VmWare View 4.0 doesn't help easily here. We virtualized one lab of Windows XP and we want to reproduced the same environment as before: users are "local admin" and each time the computer reboot, all changes was gone because DeepFreeze is installed.

With View, we can achieve almost the same with non-persistent pool but we really don't want to use "automatic provisioning. It's just overkill solution for our needs and simply to slow. For example takes this scenario: the period 1 finished and all 30 students logoff at the same time. Five minutes later 30 new students try to login for period 2 but not enough VM are ready in the pool. Yes we can put more machines in the pool but it's just a poor workaround and it's a waste of licences.

It would be really great just to be able to "revert to VM snapshot" at user logoff instead of delete and reprovisioning. Maybe in the future...