Printing in a VMware View environment does almost look like printing on a physical desktop for the user. For example the user works with some office application and wants to print the document on his local connected Canon iP5300 printer. This is an ink jet printer and it does have some special features integrated with the original Canon printer driver. The user does press the print button and wants to set some properties for printing the document.

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Back in the days of View 3.0 the USB redirection was done over a virtual channel in the RDP protocol. This changed with View 3.1 as of this release there were a second way of USB data transportation added. You can still use the RDP virtual channels and it is used as a fallback if the preferred option, a TCP connection is not available. The TCP connection is listening on port 32111 in the guest. The configuration can be seen in the virtual desktops Windows Registry at HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\Agent\Configuration\Listener. The parameter FRAMEWORKCHANNEL defines the port number which is 32111 as default. Both connections, the virtual channels and also the TCP connection can be tunnelled via the VMware View Security Server. With the USB Redirection you can use USB device filters on a class, hardware ID a specific device basis. The Registry keys for those are:

HKLM\Software\Vmware, Inc.\VMware VDM\USB\ClassFilters

HKLM\Software\Vmware, Inc.\VMware VDM\USB\ HardwareIDFilters

HKLM\Software\Vmware, Inc.\VMware VDM \USB\AllowHardwareIDs

The format of each entry in HEX is: Vid_xxxx&Pid_xxxx  -> xxxx. If a device is excluded by the class, you can specifically include it again by the hardware ID. The ClassGUID’s and hardware ID’s ca be found in the machine log file on each client.

To learn more about HID devices with VMware View please check one of my older articles. This article also gives you a quick overview of the USB log file entries.

Back in August 2009 Devon IT released the VDI Blaster software to help companies to repurpose personal computers into thin clients. The new version 1.1 now supports VMware View 4 and the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) protocol which gives users a true PC like experience, including multimedia. The new version also includes the ability to boot the VDI blaster software from a USB key or a CD-ROM in addition to the network installation.

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View 4 with PCoIP does support 4 screens with a maximum resolution of 1920×1200 per monitor. Mostly I see customers with the requirement for two screens and very often they are asking for the Pivot function where you can flip the screen from T-scale to L-shape like shown in the photo.

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If you want to know if your Thin Clients are certified for VMware View 4 you should check the hardware compatability list at vmware.com. On the tab VMware View you can also search for features like PCoIP, MMR and Smart Card.

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VMware View 4 with vSphere for Desktops is the leading desktop virtualization solution on the market. It includes several of new features but the main highlight is the software PCoIP integration which offers a great user experience on LAN and WAN networks. See this article for the complete new feature list.

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Finally its here, View4 is now available for download:

https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/p/download.php?p=view4&lp=1

Release notes are here:

https://www.vmware.com/support/view40/doc/releasenotes_viewmanager40.html

Nice article on Peterro.com is showing how to install a VMware View Open Client for OSX. There are two know issues, one with the sound redirection and one with the Alt-F4 keyboard Combination but it’s worth to give it a try!

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VMware View 3.1.2 download

Release notes

What’s New in View Manager 3.1.2

VMware View Manager 3.1.2 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues in the previous releases. Refer the Resolved Issues section for more details.

This release also includes one new feature.
Virtual Printing Multi Session Support

In this release, the virtual printing (ThinPrint) feature is updated to provide support to the users connected to multiple virtual desktops. With this update, the ThinPrint client enables users to map the printers on each virtual desktop that you are connected to.

Resolved Issues

The resolved issues are grouped as follows:

* Install and Upgrade
* View Administrator
* View Client
* View Composer
* Miscellaneous

Install and Upgrade

* When creating and preparing the guest system, you must install View Agent, after all other third-party applications are installed. If you uninstall View Agent after installing additional third-party applications, certain registry entries for the third-party applications might be lost. After installing View Agent, if you want to install additional third-party applications on the guest, you must first uninstall the View Agent. Applications known to be affected by the installation order include Microsoft AppV, vmSight ConnectorID, and Citrix XenApp.
This issue is resolved in this release.
* Effect of stopping VMwareVDMDS service on View 3.1 upgrade (KB 1012990)
* Upgrading View 3.1 to 3.1.1 clears View Connection Server settings from LDAP (KB 1013300)

View Administrator

* On rare occasions, View Administrator might display IllegalStateException errors (KB 1011392)
* View displays incorrect backup-time of View server (KB 1011390).

View Client

Desktop connections become slow when a View Client is running in a Citrix ICA session
When you connect virtual desktops using a View Client that is running in a Citrix ICA session, the virtual desktop connections are very slow compared to the connections using native RDP (mstsc.exe). This issue occurs because when the View Client runs in full-screen mode, it does not use the native full-screen mode of RDP ActiveX controls, and non full-screen mode does not function properly with Citrix ICA session.
This issue is resolved in this release.
View Composer

* View fails to automatically delete virtual machines in a multi-broker environment

In a multi-broker environment, when the Power off and delete virtual machine after first use option is enabled for non persistent pool, and many users log out of the virtual machines at the same time, View Manager sometimes fails to delete the virtual machines due to a race condition.
The issue is resolved in this release.
* View takes more time to delete virtual machines from a non-persistent pool if you enable Power off and delete virtual machine after first use (KB 1013760)
Miscellaneous

* If the Power off and delete virtual machine after first use option is enabled, virtual machines in non-persistent pools are disabled when accessed through direct Windows RDP/VI Client
When an administrator accesses a virtual machine through a direct Windows RDP client or VI Client console and then logs out, View Agent disables the virtual machine. Due to this issue, the virtual machine becomes inaccessible, and the number of unusable virtual machines in the desktop pool increases. When a desktop user tries to log in to that pool using View Client or Web Access, the following message might appear on the Connection Server even if some of the virtual machines in that desktop pool is in a Ready state:
All connections are busy, please try again
This issue occurs when you use RDP to access a virtual machine on which the Power off and delete virtual machine after first use option is enabled.
The issue is resolved in this release.
* In full-screen mode Windows special key combinations are not redirected to virtual desktops
In full-screen mode, View Client does not redirect Windows special key combinations (Windows+<Key>) to the remote desktop. This issue is inconsistent with the direct RDP.
The issue is resolved in this release.
* The vdmadmin.exe -L option does not remove existing pool assignments (KB 1008838)
* Each time a user logs in to a virtual machine that is deployed from a template on which the View 3.1 Agent is installed, a Windows Explorer window opens in the host machine.
This issue is resolved in this release.
* Network vulnerability scan shows View Manager accepting weak cipher
A network vulnerability scan shows that a pair of weak cipher-suites are being accepted by View Connection Servers. The two weak cipher-suites are now excluded from the list of enabled cipher-suites.

A colleague of mine had a requirement from his security-department to disable the ability to use “weak ciphers” to connect to the security server.

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