View 5.2 Agent and Teradici Audio Driver

[VMMikeC]

Hi,

Anyone seeing any issues with the View 5.2 Agent and Teradici Audio Driver? It does appear that the audio driver is not a signed driver. Do you include the VMware Audio Driver in the View Agent install when using the Teradici Audio Driver?

I'm seeing some issues, but I use Unidesk, so I can't tell if the issues are View or Unidesk related.

Mike

[Linjo]

What kind of issues are you seeing and are there any specific reason for using the Teradici Audio Driver?

// Linjo

[VMMikeC]

Well, my new virtual desktops are bluescreening on creation, but only when using the View 5.2 Agent. I believe this is more related to Unidesk

As for why I'm using the Teradici Audio Driver, I find the audio to be choppy without it, when using things like webex and gotomeeting. Is it not common to use this driver? Or has something change in View 5.2 where I no longer need this driver?

[Linjo]

I am not aware of any new issues causing BSOD:s in View 5.2.

There are some issues with audio degradation that was introduced with 5.2 and sometimes it can be improved with the Teradici audio driver, this is a regression from 5.1, just wanted to see what issues you have seen and if they where specific for 5.2.

The problem with using the Teradici driver is that its not extensively tested with View by the VMware QA team and not supported by VMware so this needs to be a conscious decision and should be reevaluated with every upgrade and not be done by default.

// Linjo

[jeytntechedu · Accepted solution]

Mike,

Sounds like we're in similar situations -- Unidesk, View, and the Teradici audio driver. I attempted to deploy version 1.2.0 of the Teradici Audio drivers with the View Agent (versions 5.1.1, 5.1.2, or 5.2.0), with any of those versions of the agent, the driver wouldn't be loaded on my virtual desktops and there would be an error in the device manager. The detailed status message on that was "Windows cannot verfiy the digital signature for the drivers required for this device. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source. (Code 52)".

I went back to version 1.1.0 of the Teradici audio driver and was able to use it with out problems on my 5.1.1, 5.1.3, and 5.2.0 agent layers. Obviously the downside of this, I can tell you I had the issue, but never figured out where it was coming from.

To your other question about deploying or not deploying the View Agent audio drivers, I've done installs of the Teradici audio driver both within and without the View audio driver installed. Currently I'm doing all of my installs of the View agent without the View agent audio driver, and just installing the Teradici driver. This was for two reasons: 1) I was seeing cases where the default audio device wasn't always the Teradici driver (of course this surfaced in the locations where I NEEDED it to be the default and 2) there's some combintions of the View agent and the Teradici audio driver where installing the Teradici audio results in the View audio device no longer working and thus your end-users end up with no sound at all. -- Teradici or VMware had a kb article about this, I don't off-hand remember the exact version(s) involved. So far with just the Teradici audio drivers installed, I haven't had any sound related issues reported to me.

Jeremy Ey

[VMMikeC]

Linjo - didn't realize it was not VMware supported. Thanks for the info.

Jeremy - spot on! I was seeing an issue where the Teradici driver wasn't the default, and since it was not the default, the user had no sound. The View Audio device was not working. Once I made the Teradici driver the default, they had sound. Maybe I should try to create a new View 5.2 Agent layer, excluding the View Audio driver and include the Teradici 1.1.0 driver.. I guess I could create two layers, one without the Teradici driver and one with, and give it only to people who really need it. The sound on my zero clients are so choppy without it.

[admin]

The default driver changing could just be an artifact of upgrades. The View agent installer use to override devices other than what it uses. If your default audio device was Audio Devtap ( What the View Agent Sets it too) you added a third party audio driver, then later upgraded the view agent. It would set the default back to Audio Devtap. We did change this, but I think the issue is other things like VMware Tools now override it.

Although we do not directly test / support all 3rd party components it just means you have to get support / fixes from our partners for their components.

WP