All TKB Articles in Digital Workspace

My customer wants to minimize the number of View member servers to monitor and maintenance. They attempted to install Connection Server service on Active Directory server, but failedwith the attached warning : `This product cannnot be installed on Domain controller'. I know that this is not a recommended configuration at all for a number of reasons, but I'd like to know why the connection server installer is not allowing us to install connection server on Active Directory server to convince the customer.

The big difference between VMware View 3 and 4 is that View 4 adds a new display protocol – PCoIP – that provides an optimized desktop experience for the delivery of the entire desktop environment specially across WANs with high latency and low bandwidth. From a user experience perspective View 4 offers a big improvement over its former release, but for the VMware View Administrator nothing much changes on a day-to-day basis besides few bits and pieces, and off course, the added support for vSphere 4 that enables improved virtual machine scalability and performance. The installation of all VMware View 4 components is pretty much the same – For VMware View Agent only an additional option to install a PCoIP Server when deploying to the template. See original post at [http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=403|http://myvirtualcloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/viewagent_install.png] There is another difference during installation of VMware View Client. A feature called Log in as current user that provides enhanced single sign-on – this feature integrates with Active Directory and smart cards to help simplify the process of logging in to a VMware View desktop. If you want to require all users to provide identity and credential information to log in to a View Connection Server and again to access a View desktop, deselect the Log in as current user component. [http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=403|http://myvirtualcloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/viewclient_install.png] Most of the new features related do administration or management can be found in the Desktop/Pool Settings and View Server Settings pages. Connection server restrictions: When you assign a tag to a View desktop or desktop pool, only users who connect to a View Connection Server instance that has a matching tag can access that desktop or desktop pool. You can assign a tag when you add or edit a desktop or desktop pool. See View Server Settings for configuration of the tags. Default display protocol: The new option here is PCoIP, however RDP and HP RGS are still available. Max number of monitors: Support for up to four monitors. (PCoIP only) Resolution on each monitor: Support for resolutions up to 1920×1200 and pivot orientation to each monitor independently. (PCoIP only) [http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=403|http://myvirtualcloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/add_desktop.png] Tags: In View Server Settings administrators now can control user access to virtual desktops based on the View Connection Server being used for authentication. When you assign a tag to a View Connection Server instance, users who connect to that View Connection Server can access only those View desktops and desktop pools that have a matching tag or no tags. [http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=403|http://myvirtualcloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/viewserver_settings.png] From View 4 release notes it is possible to read the following additional features: Smart card policies – Administrators can set group policies to force desktop disconnection and require reconnection when users remove smart cards. Domain filtering – You can use vdmadmin.exe to control the accessibility of domains and traverse trust relationships more quickly. You can cleanly delete View desktops using scripts. I haven’t seen any additional information about this, not even in the manual. The only link with a script to clean orphaned replicas comes from Duncan Epping. http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/12/16/cleaning-up-orphaned-replicas-in-view/ You can log in to View desktops using user principal names (UPN). You can explicitly configure IP addresses to override those supplied by the View Agent when accessing a desktop. Mixed Active Directory and Kerberos authentication is supported. Conclusion Besides some obscure new features that are not even properly documented in the manual, the upgrade and management of VMware View 4 should be no hard work for an experienced View 3 administrator. PCoIP greatly enhances the user experience however due to the lack of new features, in my opinion VMware View 4 had an early market release as a result of the obvious competition with XenDesktop. One of the features I would like to see for a next release is a agnostic connection protocol such as http/https to be able to access the desktop from anywhere. For some organisations multimedia and audio are not the most important when delivering virtual desktops but I will let this discussion for another opportunity. See original post at (Virtual Cloud) Andre Leibovici

This document describes the process of configuring a Wyse V10L to work with TCX. This is an open Wiki for the community to evolve and improve. What is TCX TCX are enrichment extensions to allow additional features to your remote sessions. There are currently three extensions and more planned. Multimedia - TCX Multimedia is a software layer on the server that intelligently redirects the multimedia processing tasks dynamically between the client and server. The multimedia stream decodes locally on the client using the local processing power of the device thereby providing complete multimedia playback capabilities overcoming any limitations that are inherent in traditional thin computing architectures. USB Virtualisation - Enables the sharing and discovery of local USB devices as if they were connected directly on the Virtualized Desktop environment. Solves the USB peripheral issues when it comes to deploying thin clients. No more compromise on limited local drivers. The Wyse thin clients now can seamlessly access their USB-based printers, scanners, storage devices, Palm, BlackBerry, and Pocket PC hand­helds over VDI environment. What do I need? You will need : a terminal, a license key for the component of TCX you are enabling (either multi-media or USB redirection) the Wyse software for the virtual machine an FTP server to place the config files a DHCP server to place some options string in Step 1 - Get your V10L working and pulling its config off the central FTP servers wnos.ini file. An example entry into your wnos.ini file. SignOn=yes autoload=1 EnableKeyboardMouseSettings=no SessionConfig=ALL MapDisks=yes DomainList=YOURDOMAIN VDIBroker=https://192.168.1.100/ Timeserver=192.168.12.40 TimeZone='GMT + 10:00' ManualOverride=yes Daylight=yes Start=100107 End=040107 TimeZoneName="AUS Eastern Standard Time" DayLightName="AUS Eastern Daylight Time" Language=Au Step 2 - Add the settings for TCX to your wnos.ini file Put your license code for TCX into the wnos.ini file. If you have multiple separate by a comma. TCXLicense=AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCCC-DDDDD-EEEEE,FFFFF-GGGGG-HHHHH-IIIII-JJJJJ Step 3 - Install the Wyse software into your VM Get the latest extensions from the Wyse website. You then need to install them inside the virtual machine that the terminals will be connected to. You are going to want to make them part of your SOE or template which drives your pools. Step 4 - Test Now you can do your testing to make sure it all works. For multimedia you just need to play video of a supported format. Try it full screen and see if the sound is in sync. You can also look on the log file in your client and you will see an entry showing that decoding has started. Another way to see if video is working if you have dual screens is sit the video across the two screens, you will see that only half the video plays, depending which screen has the greater view of the video. A current limitation is spanning two monitors. To test the USB attach a simple USB device such as a storage device. Again you should see the entries on the clients log showing a new device has been inserted. You virtual machine should report new hardware detected and load the driver or the device will just start working. It does not work. What now? If USB is not working you may need to set the terminal to map through the USB device. Put an entry of "unmapusb=no" into your wnos.ini file. Further reading and helpful links The ThinOS Admin guide has the details of the configuration options, especially for the important ones for the wnos.ini file. The next thing your will want to do is get it working with VDM, see Using the Wyse V10L and S10 Thin Clients with VDM.