As a Mac user you might be interested in the latest VMware Fusion & Fusion Professional update to version 5.0.3. This was releases two days ago and is a freely available maintenance release which includes a few bug fixes. Here’s the information from the release notes.

• Added support for Boot Camp partitions on 3TB disk drives.
• Improved the cursor performance for select applications, especially when in Unity mode.
• McAfee AntiVirus Plus updated with Windows 8 support.
• Resolved an issue that could result in blurry graphics under certain circumstances.
• Resolved an issue that resulted in horizontal scrolling being reversed in Unity mode.
• Resolved an issue with displaying Office 2013 applications on some recent Macs.
• Improvements to vSockets.

 To upgrade to the latest version please use the integrated Fusion updater.

Link: http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion5/doc/fusion-503-release-notes.html

Again thanks to Tim Arenz who made this article possible. With the brand new feature pack of VMware Horizon View you can now access your virtual desktops via HTML using the VMware Blast technology. It’s easy as this! Install the new Feature Pack on the server and the agents. After that just access your View Server via the web interface. If you’re using the View Security Server please open the Port 8443 in the local Windows Firewall manually. Accessing the web interface gives you the following screen.

Please choose VMware Horizon View HTML Access and you will see the login screen.

Just authenticate here and then access your entitled desktop.

TaaaTaaaaa! That’s it! Your desktop is being served via HTML5 into your browser.

Yesterday VMware has released the new Horizon View Client 2.0 iOS client to the Apple AppStore. With this client comes a new functionality called Unity Touch. Unity Touch is somehow a part of  what VMware introduced as Project AppShift at VMworld 2012. Unity Touch gives the user a greater experience when accessing a virtual desktop from a tablet running iOS or Android. Check this screenshot-show to see how it works.

First requirement is a VMware View 5.2 environment with the VMware Horizon View 5.2 Feature Pack 2 installed on the server and the virtual desktop. Then update your iOS or Android clients to the newest version. 

On the left hand side you can see the black slide out navigation tab.

Clicking on this a menu pops in from the left side giving you access to all installed programs on your desktop as well as to your “My Files”.

Starting an Windows application is so easy now. You don’t need to click the start menu and programs menu anymore. Just click on the application in the menu.

The “My Files” menu gives you access to all your files and on the virtual desktop.

You can also register apps as favorite applications as you can see in the next screenshot. I’ve added the control panel here for demonstration. This helps you to even easier accessing your apps on Windows.

From my view this is a cracking feature in the new release! Working on a virtual desktop from a tablet is so easy now. Unity Touch works with al apps installed to the desktop out of the box. Thanks to my colleague Tim Arenz from www.horizonflux.com for provisioning me a desktop on his test environment. This helped a lot with this article.

VMware has also released the new View Clients in version 5.3 and 2.0.

lin: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_horizon_view_clients/2_0

VMware has just released the Horizon View 5.2 Feature pack 1 which includes great new functionality for your VMware VDI environment. The Feature Pack comes with a new Remote Experience Agent, the HTML Access Agent for HTML5 desktop access via Horizon Workspace, Unity Touch and the HTML Access Installer.

For installation details see this guide: https://www.vmware.com/pdf/horizon-view/horizon-view-52-feature-pack-document.pdf

These are the new features in detail:

• Remote Experience Agent installer - The Remote Experience Agent installs Feature Pack components on Horizon View desktops, enhancing the remote desktop experience provided by View Agent 5.2. In Feature Pack 1, the installation program installs Unity Touch and the HTML Access Agent on Horizon View desktops. Both components are installed by default when you run the installer.
• HTML Access Agent - HTML Access allows users to connect to virtual desktops from their Web browsers without having to install Horizon View Client software on their client systems. The HTML Access Agent, which runs on Horizon View desktops, is the component that enables users to use HTML Access to connect to their desktops. You must install the Remote Experience Agent with the HTML Access Agent on the desktops that you want to be accessed via HTML Access.
• Unity Touch - Unity Touch enhances the way that mobile client users access a desktop. Instead of trying to manipulate a full desktop image on a small device screen, users can browse between apps and documents in a native mobile user interface without seeing the desktop. The VMware Horizon View Client documents for mobile devices provide more information about end user features provided by Unity Touch.
• HTML Access installer - This installer configures View Connection Server instances to allow users to select HTML Access to connect to desktops. After you run the HTML Access installer, the View Portal displays an HTML Access icon in addition to the View Client icon.
  You must run this installer if you want to use HTML Access to connect to desktops in a Horizon View deployment. Running this installer is also required if your users go through Horizon Workspace and select HTML Access to connect to desktops.

Link: https://www.vmware.com/support/view52/doc/horizon-view-52-feature-pack-1-release-notes.html

VMware has released a new version of VMware Workstation. The new version 9.0.2 is a maintenance release which fixes the following issues from the release notes.

• On a Windows 7 host, when you plug and unplug a headset several times, the audio card of the guest would not work. This has been fixed in Workstation 9.0.2.
• When installing VMware Tools in Linux virtual machines, the The default screen resolution options have been standardized to 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, or 1280×800 for the initial login. After login, resolution can be set to any value the user desires or Autofit can be used.
• You can now create full clones from a snapshot of a Windows XP Mode virtual machine.
• Image copy/paste now correctly function with Solaris 10 and 11 guests.
• In VMware Player, the list of available NICs in the Automatic Bridging Settings dialog window is now refreshed without restarting Player.
• A virtual machine created using Use a physical disk (For advanced users) from the new virtual machine wizard may display the following error when powering on: A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state... The cause of this issue has been fixed.
• More detailed PCI information has been added and a potential problem that resulted in risk of rebooting the host when selecting Collect Support Data has been fixed.
• Previously, when you manually disabled networking in the Network Manager and then attempted to suspend the virtual machine, the operation would fail and Workstation would show thean error The request to suspend this virtual machine failed because the corresponding VMware Tools Script did not run successfully.... This has been fixed.
• A memory leak that impacted Windows hosts and guests has been fixed.
• When running in a Linux distribution using the GNOME 3 desktop environment, Desktop folders now open as expected.
• The OVFTool has been updated to version 3.0.2.
• Disk cleanup for encrypted virtual machines has been disabled until VMware can further investigate reports of encrypted disks being damaged by this operation.
• Autostart virtual machines now power on automatically after upgrading Windows hosts to Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012.
• VMware Tools no longer crashes on Windows 2008 Server Core x64 SP2 operating system, with the following error:
  VMware Tools unrecoverable error: (vthread-3)
  Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.
  However, Windows 2008 Server Core x64 SP2 is not a supported operating system for VMware Workstation.
• Scrolling with a Lenovo ThinkPad UltraNav scroll button no longer requires excessive force.
• From the Linux version of Workstation, the Description field for a remote virtual machine now captures all characters entered.
• When editing Workstation preferences on Windows hosts, occasionally a permissions error would be displayed. This issue has been resolved.
• It is now possible to create a linked clone from a read-only template virtual machine.

Link: https://www.vmware.com/support/ws90/doc/workstation-902-release-notes.html#resolvedissues

There is a great new guide online from VMware. If you want to setup a test environment for VMware Mirage, this is the resource to use. Please check the link below.

Link: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-horizon-mirage-reviewers-guide.pdf

I just wanted to make you all aware of a new VMware EUC promotion which is valid until 9/15/2013.

Now you can upgrade from one concurrent-user VMware View® Premier Bundle license to two named-user VMware® Horizon™ Suite licenses at a 49 percent discount off the list price. Move up to the full benefits of Horizon Suite, which include centralized, physical PC management, application management, mobile management and end-user file sharing.

Horizon Suite is a bundle comprised of Horizon View, Horizon Mirage and Horizon Workspace.

VMware Horizon Suite, the platform for workforce mobility, connects end-users to their data, applications, and desktops on any device without sacrificing IT security and control.

It is recommended and Best Practice to create a MirageAdmin Group before you start the installation of the components.

Domain Based Active Directory Group Procedure:

• Prior to Mirage installation, please perform the following actions:
  • Create the Mirage Administrators Group – a new domain group e.g. MirageAdmin
  • Add this new or existing domain group to the local administrators group on the Mirage Management server i.e. Add “domain.name\MirageAdmins” to the local administrators group on the Mirage server via the local users and groups configuration window – administrators group
• It is recommended to create a new Domain User to run the Mirage services (“Mirage Services Account”). Add the Mirage Services Account.to the Mirage Administrators Group.
  • Creating a new account will allow better, secured access to the Mirage Storage.
• Add the Installing Account (that will be used for installing Mirage services) to the Mirage Administrator Group.
  • The Installing Account should also have the access privileges mentioned above.
• During Installation of Mirage Management Server
  • Login as the Installing Account.
  • Enter the Mirage Services Account when prompted during the installation. The syntax used for fully qualified name is DOMAIN\username
  • Enter the Mirage Administrator Group in the same installation wizard screen. The syntax used for fully qualified name is DOMAIN\group

Installation Errors with wrong security privileges

The Mirage installation could fail with “Failed setting default server policies: BI rules.” if you are using Built-In AD groups. Built-In groups are cannot be used as a Mirage Administrator group.

VMware’s new product Horizon Workspace includes three components. Files, Applications and Desktops. Applications is the Horizon Application Manager functionality, Desktops as you can already guessing is the HTML and PCoIP access to VMware View and Files is Horizon Data formally known as Project Octopus. Horizon Data is a great solution for synchronizing your files between multiple devices such as Windows, Mac, iOS or Android based computers / smartphones / tablets. Another great functionality in Horizon Data is the file sharing option. With that you can share files internally with other Horizon Data users but also externally. It’s easy as this!

Login to your Horizon Workspace account via the web interface. in the Files tab you can see all your files and folders. Go into a folder and select a file. By clicking the arrow a contact menu will appear giving you the option to share a file publicly. Doing this Horizon Data gives you a unique link which can be send via email to anyone who should download the file. Very easy, isn’t it?

But what if you want to share multiple files? Of course you could repeat what you just learned before and send all the links but there is a easier way to go. Just go back to the folder structure and click on the arrow. You’ll find the option share here. Click on this and a popup will appear.

Within the popup you can add users you want to share the folder with. As Horizon Workspace is connected to the Active Directory it will automatically give you usernames which are also on Horizon Data when entering the first characters of a name or email address. You can choose what people can do with your data.

• Just viewing it
• Viewing it but also editing
• Viewing it, editing it and  sharing it with other people

By adding an email address from someone external and then sharing the folder, the Horizon Data application sends an email to the recipient.

After sharing you notice that a folder is shared by the two blue symbols on the folder.

The recipient gents an email with a unique link Clicking on this Horizon Data starts to provision an account for that specific user.

The user needs to choose a password and can optionally select a picture for the account.

Done this he can see the shared folder in his My Files pane.

Clicking on the folder icon takes the user to the files included in that folder.

Horizon Workspace is great and I’m already using it for sharing files with my customers and partners. It’s very user friendly and the recipient is happy not getting large mail attachments anymore.