Preview server

[RobBeekmans]

Hi,

Busy testing VMware Horizon workspace we try to preview several data types.

Text files and PDF files work fine but DOC/DOCX and XLS files give an error.

Looking at the install guide and the reviewer guide the installation is not that clear to me.

It says install LibreOffice or Microsoft Office Preview.

We installed LibreOffice in the Data-VA through the steps in the install guide and once thorugh the steps in the reviewer guide.

In both occassions we got the same result, PDF and TXT work, the rest give an error.

To get DOCX/DOC and XLS to work what do we need to do? Install a Windows server and install Microsoft office, or?

If I read the docs you have to add the IP address of the preview server, I entered the data-va server but perhaps I should enter a Windows server running office there.

The guides say this:

"You can configure the Horizon Workspace Preview server to preview Microsoft Office documents when using the Horizon Workspace Web interface.

Prerequisites If your company is licensed to use Microsoft Windows products, you can install Microsoft Windows Preview as well.

	Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
	Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, 64 bit
	An administrative account with permission to create local accounts." Can someone shed some light on this, what needs to be installed to get preview for office documents to work? Would really appreciate some more info. Thanks Greetings Rob

[treverjackson]

Hi Rob-

I ran into this myself not knowing what to do, but being a mostly Microsoft shop we installed Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter, created a service account and added the account to the local admin users group. Then I turned off the UAC and installed Office 2010 w/ SP1 64-bit before I ran the preview server installer from the data-va. After it runs it creates two accounts, one of which it unfortunately has to be logged in with at all times for it to work. We left the machine locked and that was it. It previews word docs alright with nothing else but the above but it is VERY slow to render.

I did notice that if your machine didn't trust the Internal Root CA from the gateway nothing would display. If you're using the FQDN to one of the connectors used without kerberos it seems to work better but still slow.

Hope this helps.

[RobBeekmans]

hi Trever,

Thanks for the reply, that was was I expected.

I installed only libreoffice and can preview Adobe PDF and TXt files for now from my windows and Android machine.

My co-worker has tried it with IOS and he can preview powerpoint and others from IOS, ones that I can't preview for Android and Windows.

Seems like there is a difference between endpoint devices and functionality,

Hope someone can shed a light on this, if the client is different for the platforms offering different functionality.

Greetings

Rob

[treverjackson]

This was in the release notes:

When using Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, the previewer of the Data service does not display certain file types
In this situation, when users attempt to view a .PPT, .XLS, or .DOC file in the previewer, no content appears..

Workaround:
Users can install the Adobe Reader plugin.

[RobBeekmans]

I also tried other browser but getting the same error over and over.. will try within a vm with windows xp shortly.