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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Deploying VMware Horizon View 5.3 HTML Access

One of the features I have been most excited about VMware Horizon View 5.3 was the HTML5 access that allows browsers to access View desktops with a browser without having to install the client.  I’ve always been on the fence as to whether I liked the VMware View Client since I work with Citrix XenDesktop as well.  On one hand the Citrix XenDesktop allows you to publish desktop as icons and launch it through a browser but in order to launch the desktop, you need to install the Citrix Receiver and as some administrators probably have noticed, the receiver has become more and more larger in size feeling bloated at times.  I’ve also had to continuously battle the constant updates to the Citrix Receiver that addresses various issues preventing users from connecting to their desktops (i.e. a user clicks on the monitor icon and nothing happens or the desktop viewer launches but disappears).  The VMware View Client on the other hand rarely has the Citrix Receiver issues but requires a full application install requiring the user to fill in a URL address.  So in short, both solutions have it’s strengths and weaknesses but the VMware View HTML5 access definitely intrigues me and seemingly simplifies desktop access going forward.  I’ve had a few clients currently using HTML5 access and love it but since it’s still relatively new, only time will tell what issues would arise.

The HTML Access deployment guide can be found at the following URL:

Using VMware Horizon View HTML Access
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/horizon-view/horizon-view-html-access-document.pdf

The following browsers are supported for HTML access:

  • Chrome 28 or later
  • Internet Explorer 9 or later
  • Safari 6 or later
  • Mobile Safari on iOS devices running iOS 6 or later
  • Firefox 21 or later

The following are supported client operating systems:

  • Windows XP SP3 (32-bit)
  • Windows 7 SP1 or no SP (32- or 64-bit)
  • Windows 8 Desktop (32- or 64-bit)
  • Windows Vista SP1 or SP2 (32-bit)
  • Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.8)
  • Mac OS X Lion (10.7)
  • Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)
  • iPad with iOS 6.0 or later (therefore, iPad 1 is not supported)
  • Chrome OS 28.x or later

Begin by verifying that you have upgraded your VMware View servers to version 5.3:

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Download the files bundled with VMware Horizon View 5.3 Feature Pack 1:

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VMware Horizon View HTML Access on View Connection Servers

Log onto the View Connection server(s) and launch VMware-Horizon-View-HTML-Access_x64-2.2.0-1404668exe:

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Proceed with the install:

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Note the newly installed VMware Horizon View HTML Access program in Programs and Features on the View Connection servers:

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Once the VMware Horizon View HTML Access application has been installed, you should now see a Blast Secure Gateway configuration setting in the View Connection Servers setting General tab:

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Navigating to your View Connection server’s URL: https://viewconnectionServer.fqdn will now display the new splash page:

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Clicking on the left icon will display the following login prompt:

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Enable Desktop Pools for HTML Access

To enable a pool for HTML access, you’ll need to log into the VMware Horizon View Administrator console and edit the desktop pool’s settings under the Pool Settings tab and check off the HTML Access checkbox:

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Also note that the Max resolution of any one monitor must be set to 1920x1200 or higher so that the View desktop has at least 17.58MB of video RAM:

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Install Remote Experience Agent on Master Images

Next, power on your master templates and ensure that the following 2 services’ startup is set to Automatic and status is started or the installation of the Remote Experience Agent will fail:

Service name: UxSms

Display Name: Desktop Window Manager Session Manager

clip_image002clip_image002[4]

Service name: MpsSvc

Display Name: Windows Firewall

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With the 2 services enabled, proceed with executing the agent install:

VMware-Horizon-View-5.3-Remote-Experience-Agent-x64-1.0-1404669.exe

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Select the features you’d like to install:

  • HTML Access
  • Flash URL Redirection
  • Real-Time Audio-Video
  • Win7 Multimedia Redirection
  • Unity Touch

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Note that installing the Remote Experience agent on a Windows XP desktop will allow have the following features:

  • HTML Access
  • Real-Time Audio-Video
  • Unity Touch

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    Test HTML Access to Desktops

    With the steps outlined above completed, you should now be able to log in and launch desktops via the browser:

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    Note that I was using a newer version of IE that had compatibility issues in the above screenshot which is why I got the prompt:

    Audio quality

    We have detected that your virtual desktop may experience audio playback issues with this browser. If audio does not play properly, please try Google Chrome.

  • Sunday, February 9, 2014

    Creating Datacenters, Clusters, and adding ESXi hosts to VMware vCenter 5.x with PowerCLI

    There are times when I stop and think about how many VMware vSphere clusters I’ve deployed over the last few years and how many mouse clicks I’ve had to do just to create the datacenter and cluster objects in vCenter then subsequently adding all the hosts to the clusters.  I generally don’t mind adding a few hosts via the GUI but when there are 10 or more hosts, the task becomes repetitive and mundane. 

    I realized how inefficient this was last year so I went ahead and started using PowerCLI to create the datacenter, the clusters and finally bulk add the hosts.  Seeing how I use these cmdlets quite often and never wrote a blog post, I figure I’d write one so I can access these cmdlets anywhere.

    Creating a new Datacenter

    The PowerCLI cmdlet to create a new datacenter is: New-Datacenter

    http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.powercli.cmdletref.doc%2FNew-Datacenter.html

    image

    To create a new datacenter object, simply execute the following:

    New-Datacenter -Location (Get-Folder -NoRecursion) -Name “Toronto”

    Creating a new Cluster

    The PowerCLI cmdlet to create a new datacenter is: New-Cluster

    http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.powercli.cmdletref.doc%2FNew-Cluster.html

    image

    To create new cluster objects with HA enabled, simply execute the following:

    New-Cluster -Location <DatacenterName> -Name Desktops -HAEnabled

    New-Cluster -Location <DatacenterName> -Name Servers -HAEnabled

    Add ESXi hosts to clusters

    The PowerCLI cmdlet to create a new datacenter is: Add-VMHost

    http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.powercli.cmdletref.doc%2FAdd-VMHost.html

    image

    add-vmhost esxi-09.someNetwork.net -location "Desktops" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-12.someNetwork.net -location "Desktops" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true

    add-vmhost esxi-01.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-02.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-03.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-04.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-05.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-06.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-07.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-08.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-55.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true
    add-vmhost esxi-56.someNetwork.net -location "Servers" -user root -password 3edc@WSX -force:$true

    Definitely sure beats manually adding the hosts via the vSphere Client GUI.

    Friday, February 7, 2014

    Microsoft Exchange 2007 to 2010 mailbox move times / statistics

    Throughout all the years I’ve been working with Microsoft Exchange server migrations whether it’s for 2003, 2007, 2010 or the current 2013 version, clients tend to ask me how long I expect their mailboxes to be moved and the answer as most know is “it depends”. 

    The first consideration with mailbox moves is that the Exchange 2010 CAS server’s Mailbox Replication Service (MRS) actually throttles / controls the amount of mailboxes are allowed to be moved concurrently.  The default settings can be found on your CAS server in the following config file:

    C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin\MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config

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    Reference article:

    Throttling the Mailbox Replication Service
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff963524.aspx

    These values can be changed directly in the config file depending on the environment and whether your existing hardware can sustain and/or deliver the extra resources the move operations require.

    The second consideration is the contents of the mailbox where you may have some mailboxes with a lot of small messages and others with few messages but large attachments.  I won’t rewrite what Microsoft already has documented in plenty of their KBs so I’ll simply quote the following:

    One 4-GB mailbox with 400 items, each with 10 megabytes (MB) of attachments, will migrate faster than one 4-GB mailbox with 100,000 smaller items.

    Factors that affect Exchange Online migration performance
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204570.aspx

    The third consideration is the underlying infrastructure such as the server, network and storage hosting Microsoft Exchange.

    With the above in mind, I took the time to document the mailbox move statistics for one of the last migrations I had to do for a client from their Exchange 2007 to 2010 and would like to include it into this blog post so I have something to reference to in the future:

    Total Items Size (KB) Size (GB) Move Time (mins) Move Time (hours) Notes
    1525134 1525134 1.454481125 30 0.50 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    15623 3065871 2.92384243 35 0.58 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    14910 1679458 1.60165596 26 0.43 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    9034 856083 0.81642437 15 0.25 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    2212 1465905 1.397995949 30 0.50 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    232767 13534512 12.90751648 189 3.15 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    13421 1824829 1.740292549 27 0.45 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    3067 447994 0.427240372 7 0.12 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    17229 1805889 1.722229958 18 0.30 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    10235 1825640 1.741065979 19 0.32 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    116812 25062475 23.90143871 291 4.85 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    35377 5773375 5.505919456 80 1.33 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    400 1824 0.001739502 2 0.03 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    4154 24953 0.023797035 3 0.05 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    1623 8153 0.007775307 2 0.03 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    3676 19919 0.018996239 5 0.08 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    965 614173 0.585721016 6 0.10 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    16582 1806149 1.722477913 26 0.43 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    3192 1755429 1.674107552 14 0.23 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    954 304840 0.290718079 6 0.10 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    18408 8242260 7.860431671 49 0.82 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    14861 6894512 6.575119019   0.00 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    36312 9623639 9.177817345 69 1.15 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    867 111425 0.106263161 2 0.03 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    4099 2220695 2.117819786 15 0.25 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    745 167195 0.159449577 2 0.03 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    2980 1988413 1.896298409 14 0.23 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    6545 2233958 2.130468369 15 0.25 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    32974 688033 0.656159401 10 0.17 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    309 52004 0.049594879 1 0.02 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    355 56905 0.054268837 3 0.05 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    1778 435017 0.41486454 10 0.17 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    9130 1112515 1.060976982 14 0.23 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    7983 2669907 2.546221733 29 0.48 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    5310 1978011 1.886378288 34 0.57 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    7632 3295918 3.143232346 38 0.63 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    4061 1017960 0.970802307 43 0.72 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    438 79156 0.075489044 56 0.93 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    5006 909068 0.866954803 54 0.90 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    2413 597744 0.570053101 63 1.05 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    587 153565 0.146450996 65 1.08 Moved in bulk of 4 mailboxes.
    14894 6910834 6.590684891 32 0.53 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    7 96 9.15527E-05 148 2.47 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    16 98 9.34601E-05 149 2.48 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    56014 1910238 1.821744919 160 2.67 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    11483 6078693 5.797093391 87 1.45 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    44898 1983107 1.891238213 191 3.18 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    3632 3525576 3.362251282 91 1.52 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    1251 204801 0.195313454 94 1.57 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    461 39790 0.037946701 95 1.58 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    5 83 7.9155E-05 146 2.43 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    678 196778 0.187662125 96 1.60 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    9419 6484428 6.18403244 141 2.35 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    2825 2406936 2.295433044 112 1.87 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    131 1358 0.00129509 150 2.50 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    1221 21467 0.020472527 152 2.53 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    299 22777 0.02172184 153 2.55 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    6 108 0.000102997 154 2.57 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    5 83 7.9155E-05 155 2.58 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    4 82 7.82013E-05 155 2.58 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    6 207 0.000197411 156 2.60 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    669 284160 0.270996094 117 1.95 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    1630 398170 0.379724503 123 2.05 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    5522 2040967 1.946417809 139 2.32 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    11299 5977986 5.701051712 185 3.08 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    4216 1505535 1.435790062 156 2.60 Moved in bulk of 24 mailboxes time is not accurate due to queued time.
    24646 9520968 9.079902649 79 1.32 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    44206 17079551 16.28832912 152 2.53 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    39012 14647426 13.96887398 223 3.72 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    84 1002 0.000955582 2 0.03 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    45601 17593577 16.77854252 143 2.38 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    111 4167 0.003973961 0 0.00 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    13 137 0.000130653 1 0.02 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    32 198 0.000188828 2 0.03 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    17 149 0.000142097 3 0.05 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    36 193 0.000184059 5 0.08 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    891 4410 0.004205704 7 0.12 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    3 78 7.43866E-05 8 0.13 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    3 82 7.82013E-05 6 0.10 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    245 1897 0.00180912 10 0.17 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    67756 11653915 11.11403942 300 5.00 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    223609 54760184 52.22338104 878 14.63 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    72039 8862773 8.452198982 173 2.88 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    92932 7511814 7.163824081 481 8.02 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    33039 4848139 4.623545647 579 9.65 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    26812 10979244 10.47062302 376 6.27 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    49054 7671419 7.316035271 260 4.33 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    64281 9188019 8.762377739 203 3.38 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    54019 25236395 24.06730175 525 8.75 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    46409 17573022 16.75893974 689 11.48 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    28285 10126503 9.657385826 104 1.73 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    3895 378507 0.360972404 305 5.08 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    17953 5143101 4.90484333 517 8.62 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    445 41864 0.039924622 378 6.30 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    9849 1623132 1.547939301 279 4.65 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    15326 2885985 2.752289772 748 12.47 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    6421 617166 0.588575363 697 11.62 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    14367 2307430 2.200536728 720 12.00 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    7073 2470272 2.355834961 764 12.73 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    16369 2975223 2.837393761 60 1.00 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    2333 170347 0.162455559 700 11.67 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    3453 1868715 1.7821455 121 2.02 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    1659 165551 0.157881737 64 1.07 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    2932 1335859 1.273974419 728 12.13 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    152 1078 0.001028061 1 0.02 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    1885 141653 0.135090828 7 0.12 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    6 83 7.9155E-05 5 0.08 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    72 3243 0.003092766 6 0.10 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.
    17008 3302957 3.149945259 544 9.07 Bulk move on Friday evening so time is not accurate due to queued time.

    Thursday, February 6, 2014

    White block artifacts displayed in Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 virtual desktops

    Environment

    Citrix XenDesktop Version: 5.6
    XenDesktop VDA Version: 5.6.300
    Hypervisor: VMware vSphere 5.1
    VDI Operating System: Windows 7 Enterprise
    Microsoft Office Version: Office 2013

    Problem

    You’ve received complaints that users intermittently notice that the screen of their Citrix XenDesktop VDI would display white block artifacts:

    image

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    **Ignore the blackbox as I just needed to black out the text for privacy purposes.

    image

    **Ignore the white box with purple outlines as I just needed to block out the text for privacy purposes.

    Further troubleshooting shows that the white blocks are caused by Outlook 2013 where minimizing Outlook would minimize the white blocks as well but as soon as you restore the Outlook 2013 window, the white blocks come back.  The traditional way of forcing a redraw by dragging a window over the white blocks then away does not fix this.

    Solution

    While I’ve had mixed feedback from users in regards to this issue, one of the changes that were applied to the Citrix XenDesktop infrastructure that appeared to correct this issue was to disable the Citrix API Hooks as per the following KB:

    How to Disable Citrix API Hooks on a Per-Application Basis
    http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX107825

    More details about the API hooks can be found here:

    Citrix API Hooks (mfaphook.dll) Explained and Enumerated
    http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX107824

    So although I can’t conclusively say this may fix the issue, it’s definitely worth a try if you’re experiencing this issue.

    Monday, February 3, 2014

    Installing VMware Horizon View Feature Pack’s Remote Experience Agent silently with Active Directory GPO

    Installing the VMware Horizon View Feature Pack’s Remote Experience Agent usually isn’t an issue if an environment contains mostly linked-clone pools as all that needs to be done is to install the agent on the master image and perform a recompose but for environments with more than 10 master images or a large pool of full dedicated desktops then this task can quickly become repetitive and time consuming.

    The good news is that if your master images are in an Active Directory domain environment, you can simply use a GPO to silently deploy the agent onto the desktops without interactively logging into the desktops.  Before I begin, note that the installation and administrator guide for the agent can be found at the following URL:

    VMware Horizon View Feature Pack
    Installation and Administration

    http://www.vmware.com/pdf/horizon-view/horizon-view-52-feature-pack-document.pdf

    The silent install information can be found on page 14 in the guide above.

    image

    Step #1 – Download Remote Experience Agent

    Begin by downloading the appropriate 32 or 64-bit Remote Experience Agent for the virtual desktop Windows operating system:

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    Step #2 – Create a shared folder on a server

    Place the file on a server and create a share to the file granting Everyone read permissions.  The reason why we need to set this permission is because the way we’ll be executing the install is through startup scripts that execute upon the Windows operating start up and the process is run in the Systems (machine) context which will not have domain permissions.

    Step #3 – Create a new GPO and assign it to an OU containing the computer accounts

    Open up the Group Policy Management Editor:

    image

    Create a new GPO that you will assign to the OU containing the computer accounts of the desktops you want to install the agent on:

    image

    Navigate to Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Windows Settings –> Scripts (Startup/Shutdown):

    image

    Click on the Add button:

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    Click on the Browse button:

    image

    Right click on the empty window pane:

    image

    Select New –> Text Document:

    image

    Create a new text file named Install-Remote-Exp-Agent.txt:

    image

    Paste the following text into the text document:

    sc config MpsSvc start= auto

    net start MpsSvc

    "\\<fileserverName>\<shareName>\"VMware-Horizon-View-5.3-Remote-Experience-Agent-x64-1.0-1404669.exe /s /v"/qn /l*v ""%temp%\install1.log"""

    image

    Note that the silient install parameters are taken directly from the document. I found that the putting the install verbose log in the %temp% folder was important because the silent install would fail if the log could not be written to the external share.

    Also note that the first 2 lines are to set the Windows Firewall service to automatically start and then start it because the agent install would fail if the service is not turned on.

    image

    Proceed with renaming the .txt extension to .bat converting the file to a batch then double click on it:

    image

    Note that the batch file is now in the Script Name field:

    image

    With the policy created, assign it to the OU containing the desktops’ computer accounts:

    image

    Step #4 – Restart the desktops

    With the GPO created and assigned to the desktops, proceed with restarting them so the agent would be installed upon the startup of the operating system.

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

    Troubleshooting Steps

    If the silent install does not appear to complete, you can troubleshoot the issue by logging directly into the desktop and executing the batch file commands in the command prompt:

    sc config MpsSvc start= auto

    net start MpsSvc

    "\\<fileserverName>\<shareName>\"VMware-Horizon-View-5.3-Remote-Experience-Agent-x64-1.0-1404669.exe /s /v"/qn /l*v ""%temp%\install1.log"""

    Once the command is executed, you should be able to see the process in task manager:

    image

    If this does not lead you closer to the issue, try simply running the executable as such:

    "\\<fileserverName>\<shareName>\"VMware-Horizon-View-5.3-Remote-Experience-Agent-x64-1.0-1404669.exe

    This should launch the installer interactively allowing you to click through the menus to see if it is failing at any step.

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

    Extracting the MSI

    If obtaining the .msi file is desired so it can be used with the software installation option in a GPO, you can obtain it by running the installer:

    image

    Navigate to the %temp% folder:

    image

    You should be able to find the msi file from within one of the folders:

    image

    Sunday, February 2, 2014

    VMware Horizon View desktops displays “Protocol failure” as the “Status” in View Administrator

    Problem

    You notice that various virtual desktops in your VMware Horizon View 5.3 environment displays Protocol failure as the Status in the View Administrator:

    image

    Solution

    The following KB does a good job of explaining the various reasons why a Protocol failure would be displayed as the Status in the View Administrator:

    VMware View Administrator shows the virtual machine status error: Configuration Error (1039274)
    http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1039274

    The issue I had with the desktops was that while the Windows Firewall service was started, the Startup Type was set to Disabled;

    image

    Changing the Startup Type to Automatic corrected the problem:

    image image

    image 

    Another way of starting the service and setting it to auto start is to use the following command:

    sc config MpsSvc start= auto

    net start MpsSvc

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    Note that if the Windows Firewall service does not start upon the startup of the desktop, the VMware Blast service which is dependent on the Windows Firewall service may not have started as well which would lead to the following error message when trying to access the desktop via HTML5:

    The display protocol for this desktop is currently not available. Please contact your system administrator.

    image

    To correct this issue, simply start the VMware Blast service:

    image image

    Saturday, February 1, 2014

    Attempting to access virtual desktop via VMware Horizon View HTML access throws the error: “Your VMware Horizon View server does not support web access.”

    As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been getting quite a few calls from clients who are trying to set up HTML5 access to VMware Horizon View desktops so I thought I’d write a quick post about 2 common errors that are easily fixed.  First off, the deployment guide can be found here:

    Using VMware Horizon View HTML Access
    http://www.vmware.com/pdf/horizon-view/horizon-view-html-access-document.pdf

    Problem

    You attempt to access virtual desktop via VMware Horizon View HTML access throws the error:

    Your VMware Horizon View server does not support web access.

    Solution

    This error can be thrown if you don’t have any desktop pools configured to allow HTML access.  As indicated in the deployment guide on page 6, ensure that the max resolution of any one monitor setting is set to 1920x1200 or higher so that the View desktop has at least 17.58MB of video RAM with HTML Access checked:

    image image

    Problem

    You attempt to launch a virtual desktop through HTML5 access but receive the following error:

    This desktop does not support the requested display protocol. Please contact your system administrator.

    image

    One of the reasons why this message would be displayed if there is a problem with the installation of the VMware Horizon View HTML Access agent on the virtual desktop operating system.  Make sure the following package is installed:

    VMware-Horizon-View-5.3-Remote-Experience-Agent-xxxxx.exe

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