What’s New in VMware Horizon 7.7

Yes, VMware Horizon 7.7 has been released and we haven't reported on it yet. New support for Windows Server 2019 for desktop and RDSH VMs is here. It's been certainly a functionality that many were waiting to start doing POC and testing. VMware Horizon 7.7 adds support for VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 and VSAN 6.7U1 as well. All updated. Beside that, there are more features and additions which has been added as well.

Interesting to know that you can vMotion VMs from instant-clone desktop pools, linked-clone desktop pools, and automated desktop pools that contain full virtual machines.

Progress was made through the HTML 5 web-based console for Horizon View as well. More and more features are added in. You can now manage View Composer linked-clone desktop pools, manual desktop pools and persistent disks for linked-clone desktop pools within the HTML 5 console.

Additionally, The Help Desk Tool, which is now included within Horizon View, has been enhanced to allow Horizon admins to end application processes for end users. This action is also logged in the database. It keeps track of the date and time, desktop or application name, pool name, and the name of the admin.

When architecting, doing POC or planning installation, make sure, if you still use View Composer 7.2 or later, you must upgrade the Microsoft .NET framework to version 4.6.1. Otherwise, the installation will fail.

There is also some important information about VMware tools:

Quote from the release notes:

If you plan to install a version of VMware Tools downloaded from VMware Product Downloads, rather than the default version provided with vSphere, make sure that the VMware Tools version is supported. To determine which VMware Tools versions are supported, go to the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix, select the solution VMware Horizon View and the version, then select VMware.

So in essence, those are the major new features of VMware Horizon 7.7

• Windows Server 2019 is supported for desktop and RDSH server VMs.
• VMware vSphere 6.7 U1 and VMware vSAN 6.7 Update 1 are supported.
• Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS (SDDC Version 1.5) is supported and includes new features

Here is a screenshot from my lab.

I'm enclosing the (almost) full release notes below.

From the release notes:

Horizon Connection Server

• Horizon Administrator
  • To identify the Horizon 7 pod you are working with, Horizon Administrator displays the pod name in the Horizon Administrator header and in the Web browser tab.
  • You can monitor the system health of Unified Access Gateways version 3.4 or later from Horizon Administrator.
  • You can view the connected user when you verify user assignment for desktop pools.
• Horizon Console (HTML5-based Web Interface)
  • You can manage View Composer linked-clone desktop pools.
  • You can manage manual desktop pools.
  • You can manage persistent disks for linked-clone desktop pools in Horizon Console.
• Horizon Help Desk Tool
  • You can end an application process running on an RDS host for a specific user in the Horizon Help Desk Tool.
• Cloud Pod Architecture
  • When you create a global application entitlement, you can specify whether users can start multiple sessions of the same published application on different client devices. This feature is called multi-session mode.
  • When you create a shortcut for a global entitlement, you can configure up to four subfolders.
  • You can use a single vCenter Server instance with multiple pods in a Cloud Pod Architecture environment.
• Published Desktops and Applications
  • A farm can contain up to 500 RDS host servers.
  • For published applications, users can configure the multi-session mode to use multiple instances of the same published application on different client devices. For published desktop pools, users can initiate separate sessions from different client devices.
  • You can set the RDS host in the drain mode state or in the drain mode until restart state. Horizon Agent communicates the status of the RDS host to Connection Server. You can monitor the status of the RDS host in Horizon Administrator.
  • You can enable hybrid logon for after you create an unauthenticated access user. Enabling hybrid logon provides unauthenticated access users domain access to network resources such as fileshare or network printers without the need to enter credentials.
• vSphere Support
  • vSphere 6.7 U1 and vSAN 6.7 U1 are supported.
• Virtual Desktops
  • vMotion support for instant-clone desktop pools, linked-clone desktop pools, and automated desktop pools that contain full virtual machines.

Horizon Agent for Linux

• Single sign-on support on additional platforms
  Single sign-on (SSO) is now supported on the SLED/SLES 12.x SP1/SP2/SP3 desktops.
• Audio-in support on additional platforms
  Audio-in is now supported on SLED 11 SP4 x64 or SLED/SLES 12 SP3 x64 desktops .
• Instant-clone floating desktop pool support on additional platforms
  Instant-clone floating desktop pool support is now available on SLED/SLES 11 and 12.x or later desktops .
• Session Collaboration
  When the session collaboration feature is enabled for a remote Linux desktop, you can invite other users to join an existing remote desktop session or you can join a collaborative session when you receive an invitation from another user.
• Instant-clone offline domain join using Samba
  Instant-cloned Linux desktops are allowed to perform an offline domain join with Active Directory using Samba. This feature is only supported on Ubuntu 14.04/16/04/18.04, RHEL 6.9/7.3, CentOS 6.9/7.3, and SLED 11 SPF4/12.

Horizon Agent

• Client drive redirection over VMware Virtual Channel (VVC) or BEAT side channel has improved when copying a large number of small files and also when indexing a folder that includes a large number of files.
• Horizon 7 version 7.7 supports VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business in an IPv6 environment.
• When client drive redirection is enabled, you can drag and drop files and folders between the client system and remote desktops and published applications.
• The VMware Virtual Print feature enables users to print to any printer available on their Windows client computers. VMware Virtual Print supports client printer redirection, location-based printing, and persistent print setting.
• You can add a Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) device to instant clone desktop pools and add or remove a vTPM during a push-image operation.
• Windows Server 2019 is supported for RDS hosts and virtual desktops.
• The Virtual Printing feature is supported for published desktops and published applications that are deployed on RDS hosts that are physical machines.
• The clipboard audit feature is supported for all Horizon Client platforms. With the clipboard audit feature, Horizon Agent records information about copy and paste activity between the client and agent in an event log on the agent machine. To enable the clipboard audit feature, you configure the VMware Blast or PCoIP Configure clipboard audit group policy setting.
• Physical PCs and workstations with Windows 10 1803 Enterprise or higher can be brokered through Horizon 7 via Blast Extreme protocol.

Horizon GPO Bundle

• You can configure group policy settings for the VMware Virtual Print Redirection feature.
• You can configure group policy settings to specify the direction of the drag and drop feature.

Horizon Client

For information about new features in Horizon Client 4.10, including HTML Access 4.10, see the Horizon Clients Documentation page.

Horizon 7 Cloud Connector

• You can upgrade the Horizon 7 Cloud Connector virtual appliance.
• VMware Horizon Cloud Service integrates with Horizon 7 using the Horizon 7 Cloud Connector for on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS deployments. With this integration, Horizon Cloud Service provides a unified view into health status and connectivity metrics for all of your cloud-connected pods. For more information, see the Horizon Cloud Service documentation.

VMware Cloud on AWS

• Instant clones are supported on VMware Cloud on AWS. For a list of Horizon 7 features supported on VMware Cloud on AWS, see the VMware Knowledge Base article 58539.

We're following the EUC space with attention. There is now this new compatibility with the latest operating systems including VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 1 and Windows Server 2019. It will help us to test the latest Microsoft OS for the VDI which is great. Stay tuned for more updates about that.

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