VMware Horizon Community
daviddeleeuw
Contributor
Contributor

usb redirection for windows 2008 r2 - we need it now

Hello all,

We have classrooms based on thin clients (some of them old XP PC's) running rdp to Windows 2008 R2.

I have a budget for upgrade with a very short deadline. My prefered option is to buy Zero Clients (teradici), connect them to the existing servers (RDS with PCOIP).

This would give us a practical interim solution till we can set up a provisioned environment.

We set up a test environment, and this works great for everything but for the flash drives.

The only service we need is for students to be able access their usb "disk on key"s storage. But this service is critical.

After searching the cause of the problem I found Peter Brown's excellent white paper, which states:

USB Redirection and RDS-Hosted Applications and Desktops

Horizon with View does not yet support USB redirection with RDS-hosted applications and desktops, which are

multi-session. USB redirection is supported only with single-session View.

So here is the question. What does mean "not yet" in the above sentence ? If a solution is in sight (till the beginning of the academic year) we can go for this. If not, I really don't know how to work around it.

Any help or insight much appreciated !

David de Leeuw

12 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

We have a roadmap to add all the capabilities we offer with VDI based desktops over to RDSH with PCoIP for both desktops and apps. You will see much of this happen quarter over quarter as we release a lot of our remoting features each quarter. Everything we are releasing and the order we are doing it is being done based on broad customer feedback and input. We have existing customers who need less features and just needed something. We also have a ton of customers looking to move away from competitive solutions. They have a lot of existing feature functionality they do not use and are looking for consolidated, simplified solution, but still need a few  more things. Those customers have really helped us in prioritizing what to move over and release first so they can start their migrations in phases.

The order might not help in your case. I am just sharing some of the background so you know we are aware of the need and most the guidance is from customers, like you, who have helped prioritize all these items. We are committed, so its not a question of if, its just when. It will happen much faster than most expect. Much of this is supported by our solution today when connecting with RDP. For some that is a short term solution but we understand it does not work for everyone.

We cannot comment publicly in the forums on when specifically something will land. However, if you reach out to your account team they can make sure you are aware of the roadmap and timing.

Thanks for your support!!!

WP

peterbrown05
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi David,

thanks for the positive feedback on the white paper! Smiley Happy

cheers

peterb

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daviddeleeuw
Contributor
Contributor

WP: Thanks. I will take the risk and go for it. RDP is not a solution as we are talking about zero clients. We will order the stations now, but replace the classrooms when we have provisioning ready or the usb redirection on Windows server works.

Peter: any VMWARE writer who can write a paper without mentioning "remediate" deserves a bonus !

David

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chengs
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Now we support USB storage devices for 2012 RDSH desktops and apps, please check the newly posted blog for more details:

http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2015/04/vmware-horizon-view-usb-redirection-rdsh-desktop-application.htm...

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daviddeleeuw
Contributor
Contributor

Great. I moved the "correct answer" to chengs. Peter needs to update the white paper.

We will implement this solution in the coming weeks.

Thanks you all !

David

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peterbrown05
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

more work for me - yay!

thanks for reminding me, that's a good spot.

cheers

peterB

peterbrown05
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

white paper now updated to reflect the fact that usb storage devices are supported on rdsh2012

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-horizon-view-usb-device-redirection.pdf

cheers

peterB

admin
Immortal
Immortal

The white paper update is JIT, I can check the latest USB redirection information then instead of digesting the legacy one. Thanks Peter.

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daviddeleeuw
Contributor
Contributor

Great. We have 45 zero clients waiting to be deployed. I missed the current academic year, but we will roll them out during summer, connecting to Windows 2012 R2.

Thanks, Peter !

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daviddeleeuw
Contributor
Contributor

Dear Peter Brown at VMWARE

I have to reopen this thread !

I thought we solved all problems with upgrading to Windows 2012 R2, Horizon 6.1 and TeradDici Firmware 4.8, but still USB redirection on Terdadici Windows 2012 RDSH does not work !

(Using Horizon View client from Windows works fine with USB redirection on Windows 2012 R2 RDSH sessions)

I opened a request on Teradici, they proposed all kinds of impractical solutions, but finally opened a request at Teradici.

Stuart at Teradici opened a feature request under number: Ticket #15134-38684    and wrote me:

Hi David,

Some more information from our product management team, there are changes that VMware will need to make in Horizon View to be able to support USB redirection in RDSH mode with zero clients. The zero clients are ready to go once the Horizon changes are in place.

As I mentioned earlier, your request has been flagged to the Teradici Product Management team. Can you please contact VMware regarding this feature request.

Best Regards, Stu

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter  , could you contact Stuart at Teradici directly and check out what is needed to get this solved. We really need this yesterday (in fact yesteryear)


Thanks

David




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peterbrown05
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

hi david,

i will redirect these comments to the relevant teams in vmware.

is the problem here that you are needing to use something called nested sessions? ie, you remote in to say a win7 vdi desktop, and from there you launch a view client to give you the app remoting functionality? ie you need to do a double hop of the usb into win7 and then on into 2012r2 app or desktop session?

or are you trying to go direct into 2012?

i will make sure the relevant folks see this, and they can look into whats being asked for here, (fyi; I dont work on USB redirection anymore)

cheers

peterB

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daviddeleeuw
Contributor
Contributor

hi peter,

i try to connect the teradici zero client directly to windows 2012 r2. we set the zero client up to connect to a horizon view server which manages a farm of windows servers.

thanks

david

n.b. pity that you are off the usb project ..

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