Windows 10 Upgrade and dedicated VMware Horizon machines

[NilsTa]

Hi. I have a bunch of dedicated Windows 10 1703/1709 machines in my Horizon (7.8) environment. I manage them with SCCM (windows updates, software updates etc). Because 1703 is not supported anymore and 1709 soon will be out of support i would like to upgrade them from 1703/1709->1809. My problem is, that this is not possible. Every time i try to do it i get an automatic rollback after the first reboot. It doesn't matter if i try do it with SCCM/Software Center or with Windows Update assistant. Always the same result. All the compatibility checks (disk/memory/cpu) are OK.

I looked through the logs and they basically said that setup.exe could not migrate the user data and that's why the rollback happens. Is this because the user profile is actually on the Persistent Data Disk and Windows setup doesn't know about it and tries to find it on the C:\ drive ?

Should i be able to upgrade my Windows 10 1703/1709 to the latest Windows 10 version using either SCCM/Software Center or the Windows Update Assistant ? Or is a clean install the only supported way ?

[NilsTa · Accepted solution]

If anyone happens to read this thread i got an answer from VMware's official support. Basically the answer is that upgrades are not supported because: "This is not supported, as some of the Windows System files are shared with the parent VM, and are therefor locked."

[NilsTa]

Its been almost 2 years and now i have that same question, but now for 1909-20H2 scenario 🙂 . Does anyone know if this is possible or is the situation the same ? Just hoping that maybe the situation has gotten better over the years.

[AlexAckerman]

I would imagine the answer would be the same.  My question for you is that if you have baseline Windows machines for your Horizon Desktop, have you tried to automate an updated build process, similar to what is described here:

https://techzone.vmware.com/using-automation-create-optimized-windows-images-vmware-horizon-vms#_141... 

I've built a Win10 21H1 system with that process and it works well to slipstream all of my apps and settings in.  I'm looking at how to do the same process but with Endpoint Config Manager building a deployed image to vcenter, but haven't wrapped by head around that process yet.

Hope this helps...

Ack

[NilsTa]

Interesting approach, but really doesn't help me 🙂 . The updating of the so called golden image is not that big of a deal. I am just trying to avoid downtime for users, because even with Onedrive and whatever file and settings migration solutions the users still have to redo some settings by hand.