Mounting ISO on client for Remote Desktop users

[Litejk]

Hi, I am trying to find a solution that works like this:

Users log in to a Win 2008 R2 host with RDP client, opens vSphere Client and can mount ISO from a virtual CDROM on the RDS server.

I was first thinking about letting users edit a VM setting and browse the datastores to mount an ISO, but that also means that the user will see all others VM's and catalogs on the datastores, which is not an ideal solution. Since it is not possible to give access rights to individual folders on a datastore, or to prevent users from seeing all the VM's in vCenter5, that is not an option.

So then, I was thinking of installing some ISO mounting tools directly on the terminal server, ie. Deamon Tools or similar. But that only works for 1 user at at time. For example is Users1 is logged on and mounting a RedHat ISO, all the others users logged on the terminal server also will have the same ISO attached to the VM (if they choose to use Client Device). Meaning that if User2 is logging on to the terminal server, he will see that RedHat ISO is alread mounted and mounts a different ISO. User1 will then have not be so happy to loose the connection to his ISO.

So do anyone know another method of doing this? All hosts are running ESXi5 and vCenter5. Thanks

[vGuy · Accepted solution]

You can actually mount an ISO stored on a Windows local disk and also from accessible network location where vSphere Client is installed.

[chriswahl]

Just extract the ISO to a shared location for the users to access.

I'm not aware of a way to insert a CD into a shared TS server, physical or virtual, in such a way that no other remote desktop users will be affected.