VMware Horizon Community
sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

What are the most common troubleshooting tools

Hi

I'd like to see what tools people commonly use for building and testing vdi images, there UEM configuration files, and there appstacks.

Thanks

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I've started building images using packer following this blog https://virtualhobbit.com/2019/10/01/automating-vdi-template-creation-with-vmware-code-stream-and-ha... (only parts 1 + 2) with my own modifications.

As for testing apps, appstacks, and UEM configs we have a task list that we run through when we are prepping to push out a new image. Not very creative or automated, but it works. I've been thinking of using apps that can perform sort of pester-like tests or using PowerShell to execute the apps and/or change files/registry keys to make sure that UEM captures them.

As for tools, most of the time it's notepad++ to compare logs/configs and procmon for seeing registry/directory access.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

I've started building images using packer following this blog https://virtualhobbit.com/2019/10/01/automating-vdi-template-creation-with-vmware-code-stream-and-ha... (only parts 1 + 2) with my own modifications.

I'm doing that right now Smiley Happy I've been building them by hand since then, its not much since we've been able to do one parent image, but I'd like to do as much as possible in code. I'm tempted since they released an app volumes api to try automating building app stacks .

Thanks, I've been using the same tools, I'm just hoping to find the one person hiding a fantastic tool no one else knows about :smileygrin:

mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I haven't had the chance to try automating building AppStacks, although I have built a script using both the AppVolumes API and View API that logs a user out of View and then deletes their WV in the event that it has become corrupt (which seems to happen quite frequently). Also use parts of it as a cleanup process to clear WV's for user's that have left the organization along with their UEM profiles and redirected folders.

A lot of my scripts are for cleanup and user troubleshooting. Haven't had the time to invest in application testing. Although doing some quick research Winium and TestStack.White seem to be some up and coming options for testing. I know AutoIT was pretty good in the past, but I'm not sure how well it performs these days. Also MSFT is apparently developing WinAppDriver.

Seems like a lot of Selenium-based tools on the Horizon (no pun intended).

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

How did you handle the unattended.xml part, I can't get the one in the site to work, or my own for somereason. I'm using the exact code in the site, but it keeps failing during install complaing about the disk configuration part of the unattended.xml

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I ran into that also. I ended up just removing the disk configuration portion of the unattend all together and let Windows use it's default disk configuration and it works for me. I don't normally do any special disk configurations in Win10 so it meets my needs. I know in the past the VMware docs recommended to create a disk partition manually with diskpart, but I don't see that anymore.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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Hotrod76
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am using the below to build a Windows 10 Master image and test a Windows 10 master image. 

https://techzone.vmware.com/sites/default/files/resource/creating_an_optimized_windows_image_for_a_v...

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