VMware View new features to come.
VMware View 4.0 should be updated to version 4.5 in the weeks (months) and bring some more features. I think that it's a good news and it makes me pretty excited. Here are some of them quoted from fellow blogger and vExpert Sven Huisman's blog Virtualfuture.info:
“Local Mode” : off-line VDI finally out of experimental phase. There is also a new role in this scenario: the Transfer Server. ThinApp 4.5 with Application Entitlement (assign applications to Desktop Pools; MSI only)
Tiered Storage : define different datastores for different datatypes (replica’s, userdata etc.) <- great feature !
Full Sysprep support
Disposable Disk technology (ability to identify Temp/Swap data in your image and clean that data automatically).
Snapshot support for Linked Clones (Floating Pool)
Role Based Administration
Kiosk Mode Desktop Pools (GUI suppression and device-based assignments)
Native MacOS client
Web Download Portal (for downloading the client software via the web)
A good dashboard with more event logging for better troubleshooting
With View 4.5, users will be able to put more virtual desktops on VMware's ESX for higher consolidation ratios. Doing this also lowers the total cost of ownership for VMware View, which is considered an expensive product.
This VMware KB shows you the step-by-step process to configure roaming profiles on users desktops.
Configuration of roaming profiles helps you to keep the users data on separate file server. The changes to the View desktop aren't important since the users data are stored elsewhere. You have also one central location of the data which needs to be backed up etc.
The VMware KB can be found here.
To configure roaming profile on View desktops:
- Click on Start > Run, type dsa.msc and click OK. This opens Active Directory Users and Computers.
- Right-click the Active directory domain and choose New > Organizational Unit.
- Name the Organizational Unit and click OK.
- Right-click the newly created Organizational Unit and choose Properties.
- In the Properties Window, click the Group Policy tab.
- Click New and provide a name to the Group Policy.
- Click Edit.
- Under Computer Configuration, navigate to System > User Profiles.
- In the left pane, right-click Only allow local user profiles and choose Properties.
- Select the radio button to enable this policy and click OK.
- Click Start > Run, type cmd and click OK.
- Run the following command to update the group policies:gpupdate /force
- Restart the computer for the group policy to take effect.
