Prepare unmanaged machines

To prepare unmanaged machine to be used with VMware View Horizon, we need to perform some tasks first:

Verify that we have administrative access rights and remote desktop user are added to local Remote Desktop Users group. Next we need to join unmanaged desktop machine to AD Domain and configure windows firewall to allow RDP connections.

Next install View Agent.
Double click installation file.
Click Next and accept license agreement and click Next
Choose IP protocol and click Next

Select View Agent feature which need to enable

Specify View Connection Server IP address or Hostname, specify authentication method to register machine with Connection server. Use current user credentials or specify administrator name and password. Click Next and Install to start installation.

Prepare an RDS Host Parent Virtual Machine

To prepare Windows Server machine to server as desktop machine to users need we to install Remote Desktop Service first.

Server 2008: Start Server Manager, Select Roles and click Add Roles to start wizard.

Select Remote Desktop Service, on Select Role Services select Remote Desktop Session Host

Specify Authentication Method

Select Client Experience functionality enabled to users. Click Next on conformation page and wait for installation to finish.

Install Desktop Experience – in Server Manager select Features and click Add Feature

Select Desktop Experience and conform Add Required Features click Next and Install

Server 2012 – Login to server and open Server Manager, click Add roles and features. Skip the begin page, on installation page choose Role-based or feature-based installation, click Next

At Server Roles select Remote Desktop Services and click Next

Skip Feature page and at Role Services select Remote Desktop Session Host and click to conform on Add Roles and Features Wizard click Next and Install to finish, and reboot when prompted.

Server 2012 – install Desktop experience . From Server manager click Add roles and features skip all page till Features, expand User Interfaces and Infrastructure and check Desktop Experience click Add Features to conform click Next and Install to finish. Restart when prompt.

Activate Windows on Linked-Clone RDS Hosts

We need to use KMS Server to be able properly activate Windows Server on Linked-Clones RDS hosts, we must use Microsoft volume activation on the parent virtual machine. When a linked-clone machine is created, and each time the linked clone is recomposed, the View Composer agent uses the parent virtual machine’s KMS server to activate the operating system on the linked clone.

Optimize Parent Virtual Machine settings

Create a Manual/Automated RDS Farm

We can create RDS Farms by accessing View Admin Website and Inventory > Resources > Farms. Click Add… button on the top or right-click and choose Add… from menu to access Add Farm Wizard. First step is to choose what Type of Farm we want to create. Let’s start with Manual. Select Manual Farm and click Next.

Next type Farm ID and description, we can select different Access group. RDS Farm have some similar setting as normal pools like Display protocol, session timeout, HTML access to list few. When we change all setting click Next to continue

Select RDS Hosts to add to the farm and click Next.

On Ready to complete click Finish to completed creation Manual RDS Farm.

Create Automated RDS Farm starts from same Wizard just select Automated Farm and click Next.

Select vCenter Server and click Next

Type ID name and description. As  well as Manual Farm we can modify Farm Setting. When done click Next.

Type the naming pattern we want to Linked Clone be named. Click Next

Storage Policy Management we can select here if we want to use vSAN with this farm if available and separate datastores for replica. Click Next

Select Parent VM, Snapshot, new VM location and resource settings, Click Next.

Next we can modify Advanced Storage Option and Guest Customization.

Create Application Pools according to a deployment plan

To create Application Pool we need RDS Farm which we already created in previous steps. We need have installed application which we want to use for our Application Pool. We can as well use application already pre-installed like Calculator.

We can access Application Pool Wizard from Inventory > Catalog > Application Pool right-click empty space on the right and from Menu choose Add… or click Add… bottom on the top. Select RDS Farm we want to use and from list of application choose in this example Calculator click Next

We can edit the ID and Display Name, Select Entitle users after this wizard finishes  to specify user able to use this application. Click Next to finish

After Application has been created we can access and modify some of the setting listed below

Click here to read other entries in the series VCAP6 -DTM