WinTPC (Windows Thin PC) is a small footprint version of Windows 7 which should help customers to repurpose old computer hardware as a thin client. With WinTCP there is no need for a VDA (Virtual Desktop Access) license for accessing VDI desktops as the Microsoft connect website states. (See screenshot below)

At the moment Windows TPC is available for everyone through the beta program but this will stops latest when WinTPC will be released. As of an article at silicon.de the WinTPC software will only be available for Software Assurance customers. But anyway it should be possible to run the VMware View Client for Windows on WinTPC to access your VMware View environment. This might help to lower the investment costs for a VDI project. In the first step customers can repurpose their old PC hardware and then start a step by step soft migration to proper Zero client hardware like the EVGA or Wyse P20.

There are several ways of installing the VMware View Client for Windows on a Windows based device. You can install the client software manually by first downloading it from the VMware View Server web interface and then starting the installation from your desktop, you can install the client silently with MSI command line parameters or you can deploy the client with your software deployment solution. As described in the VMware View Installation Guide 4.6 chapter 09 on page 103 you can use parameters to modify the MSI settings for the installation package which is still an EXE file. You may wonder if that works with your deployment software.

If not, you could try to directly deploy the MSI file. The next steps show you how to access the content of the VMware View Client EXE installer file.First of all download the latest version of the client from your View Connection Server by accessing the web interface. Then start the installation on a Windows desktop. In the background the installer will extract the MSI file and some CAB archives into the temporary directory on your Windows box. When the installation wizard comes up and is ready to begin please open the temporary folder in the Windows Explorer. The easiest way of doing that is using the Run dialog/search field in the startmenu. Just type %temp% here, press enter and it will take you on the right folder.

In there look for a folder whose name is starting with a bracket like seen in the last screenshot. There should be three folders created by the View Client Installer so please take a look at all of them to find the right one. If so you’ll find a VMware View Client.MSI file and some *.cab files. Here we you!

*Kudos go to some colleagues having this conversation on a mailing-list.

Yesterday a customer asked me how to use Windows roaming profiles just on the virtual desktops and not on the local desktops from which the user is connecting. Those local desktops are also a member of the Active Directory and the connecting user has a profile path configured in his user setting within the Active Directory.

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The users in a View environment access the virtual desktop via the RDP protocol. For that to work the user needs to have special access rights. As a standard only the administrator has direct RDP access to the remote system. To configure access for the user you could do that on a per desktop basis manually what would be time consuming or you can use the Group Policy Objects within the Active Directory which is the recommended way. First of all you’ll need to figure out who should get remote access and create one or more user groups in the Active Directory. In this example the groups is called vditestusers and it’s a member of the domain TEST. Diese This group will be a member of the local group Remote Desktop Users on the virtual desktop which has the needed remote access rights. For that reason you’ll need to configure the group in the GPO’s as a Restricted Group.

After that add configure the group as a member of the local group Remote Desktop users and the users will have remote access.

In the last step you need to allow the users to connect remotly using the Terminal Services. There is an option within the administrative templates to do that. Just go to: Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components and then Terminal Services. This option will enable the Remote Access on the desktop operating system.

More information:

VMware XP Deployment Guide (Seite 4): http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/XP_guide_vdi.pdf

Restricted Groups: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc785631.aspx

Centrally enable Remote Desktop using Group Policy: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc776790.aspx