VMware View Manager 3.1.2 Release Notes

Last Updated: 17 February 2010

These release notes cover the following topics:

• What's New in View Manager 3.1.2
• Before You Begin
• Known Issues
• Resolved Issues

What's New in View Manager 3.1.2

VMware View Manager 3.1.2 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues in the previous releases. Refer the Resolved Issues section for more details.

This release includes the following new features.

French Localization of View

The View Client, View Portal, and the Online Help for VMware View are now available in French. The View Manager Administration Guide, VMware View Manager Release Notes, Getting Started with VMware View document, and the other related documents are also available in French. Currently, the download pages for View are not available in French.

Virtual Printing Multi Session Support

In this release, the virtual printing (ThinPrint) feature is updated to provide support to the users connected to multiple virtual desktops. With this update, the ThinPrint client enables users to map the printers on each virtual desktop that you are connected to.

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5 Support

View Manager 3.1.2 includes support for VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5.

Top of Page

Before You Begin

Before you begin installing and configuring VMware View components, review the General Installation Guidelines section.

Important: View 3.1.2 does not support VMware vSphere. View 3.1.2 supports the VMware Infrastructure versions listed in the System Requirements section of the VMware View Manager Administration Guide and VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5.

General Installation Guidelines

The following guidelines apply to all installation types (new installations and upgrades).

• Install VMware Infrastructure 3 version 3.5 Update 3 or above – Install VMware Infrastructure 3 version 3.5 Update 3 or above if you want to use View Composer or Offline Desktop features. When upgrading, strictly follow the recommendations in the VMware VirtualCenter Upgrade Guide.
• View Client with Offline Desktop is an experimental feature. Install the VMware View Client with Offline Desktop if you want to use Offline Desktop.
• View Client with Offline Desktop cannot be installed on the same machine as VMware Workstation, VMware ACE, VMware Player, or VMware Server.
• View Client, View Client with Offline Desktop, and View Agent cannot be installed on the same machine.
• Synchronize time – Use the VMware Tools time synchronization function to ensure that virtual machines are synchronized to ESX. ESX must synchronize to an external NTP source, for example, the same time source as Active Directory. For additional information, see Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines information guide.
• Validate your Internet Explorer settings – View Client uses Microsoft Internet Explorer internet settings, including proxy settings, when connecting to View Connection Server. Ensure that your Internet Explorer settings are accurate and that you can access the View Connection Server URL through Internet Explorer.
• Before creating an automatically provisioned desktop pool, do the following:
  • Validate the vCenter guest customization specification if you intend to use one – Make sure that the guest customization specifications in vCenter are accurate. You should use vCenter to deploy and customize a virtual machine from your template using that customization specification and fully test the resulting virtual machine (in other words, DHCP, authentication) before using that customization specification in View Administrator.
  • Validate network ports on ESX – Make sure you have a sufficient number of ports on the virtual switch which is used for the guest virtual machines. The default value for ESX is 24, which might not be sufficient when creating a large pool of desktop virtual machines.
• Install required Microsoft Windows patches – For Windows XP desktop virtual machines, make sure you have RDP patches referenced by Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles 323497 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323497) and 884020 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884020). Failure to do this might result in a Windows Sockets failed error message on the client.
• Upgrade View Client machines to use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 6.x – This recommendation applies to machines running Windows XP and Windows XPe. Windows 2000 does not support RDC 6.x. Windows Vista comes with RDC 6.x installed. RDC 6.x can be downloaded at the following Microsoft download site: Microsoft downloads
• View does not support using link-local (169.254.x.x) addresses for virtual desktops – Configure virtual desktops to use DHCP or static IP addresses.
• VMware View provides Common Access Card (CAC) support for Actividentity and Gemalto smart cards. View does not currently offer SSO support which enables single sign-on from a client device to a virtual desktop without requiring a user to re-enter a pin.

Known Issues

The known issues are grouped as follows:

• Installation
• Upgrade
• View Administrator
• View Client
• Common Access Card
• Offline Desktop
• View Composer
• Miscellaneous

Installation

• If the system locale (set in Control Panel > Regional and Language options > Advanced > Language for non-Unicode programs) does not match the language of the version of Windows that you are using, installation of the View Connection Server does not respond.
  Workaround: Make sure that the system locale matches the language of the version of Windows that you are using.
• Installing the View Agent on Windows XP disables the Welcome Screen and Fast User Switching (KB 1007602)
• No warning message is generated that desktops are checked out when you uninstall the View Client with Offline Desktop (KB 1007607)
  

Upgrade

• Upgrading from VDM 2.1 to View 3.x using a clustered setup (KB 1007773)
• Direct connect to virtual desktop is no longer a global setting in View 3.x (KB 1007788)
• Upgrading from VDM 2.0 Agent build to the current View Agent generates a runtime error (KB 1007789)
• VDM 2.0 Agent builds can be installed when later release builds are installed and it does not generate an error message (KB 1007791)

View Administrator

• Administrator window does not list users after a query (KB 1013502)
• If you press the F5 key to refresh the page while configuring a desktop pool, a Java error might be displayed.
  Workaround: Do not press F5 to refresh the page. If the error appears, you must close all active Web browser instances and then restart them.
• When using View Administrator with Internet Explorer version 6, the OK and Cancel buttons on the Global Settings page (Configuration > Global Settings > Edit) might not be visible when the screen resolution is set to 800x600.
  Workaround: Change the screen resolution to 1024x768.
• An authentication error is displayed if a non-ASCII value for the external URL is entered when configuring a View Server in View Administrator.
  Workaround: Use only ASCII characters in the View Server External URL.
• Removing a View Manager ADAM Instance Causes an Error (KB 1007591)

View Client

• MMR might fail after restarting a virtual machine in vCenter (KB 1013503)
• View Client for Windows supports connections to desktops using the HP RGS protocol. View Portal does not support RGS connections. Linux thin clients do not support RGS connections.
  Additionally:
  • Only HP Blade PCs, HP Workstations, and HP Blade Workstations are supported. virtual machines are not supported.
  • Vista desktops are not supported.
  • Only direct connections are supported. Tunnel connections are not supported.
  • Smart cards (CAC) are not supported.
  • Multiple monitors are not supported.
• When you are connected to a desktop using the HP RGS protocol, if you right-click a file, folder, or network connection, you might see a red screen and repeated Network connection warning errors. This problem occurs if you right-click an item to select that item and the following settings are turned on:
  • Show Common Tasks in Folders
  • Fade or Slide Menus into View
  Workaround: Workarounds are described in Microsoft KB article 819946 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/819946). Do one of the following:
  
  • Turn off the Fade or Slide Menus into View visual effect
  • Use Windows classic folders
  Alternatively, select the item before you right-click it. To select an item, either click the item or rest the mouse pointer on the item.
• View Client fails to connect to the View Security Server if a standard server FQDN with localized characters is specified during security server installation.
  Workaround: Specify the IP address of the standard server during security server installation.
• VMware View Client requires HTTP 1.1 to be enabled in Internet Explorer (KB 1011655)
• When a user connects to a desktop through multiple View Clients desktop sessions are disconnected (KB 1007581)
• View Portal on Mac OS does not support connection to Windows Vista desktops (KB 1007584)

Common Access Card

• Smartcard readers are not filtered when a device class is added to USB filtering
  Smartcard readers are not filtered, and they appear in the device redirection list when you edit the registry value to filter other devices. The default setting allows filtering of Smartcard readers, and after filtering, they should not appear in the device redirection list.
  Workaround
  Add the Smartcard reader class 50DD5230-BA8A-11D1-BF5D-0000F805F530 to the filter if any other device class is present.
• View Client with Offline Desktop does not work with CAC authentication (KB 1007608)
• Users accessing View Administrator or View Portal might be prompted to select a certificate (KB 1007609)
• Entering an invalid PIN for CAC authentication redirects to the wrong login screen (KB 1007618)

Offline Desktop (Experimental)

• If you attempt to perform an offline operation that requires re-authentication when the View Connection Server is configured to display a pre-login message, open windows might close though the View Client process is still running in the background.
  Workaround: End the View Client process (wswc.exe) in Task Manager and then restart View Client. If the network connection is lost and then comes back when running a local desktop, restart View Client before initiating an offline operation.
  This problem does not occur if you do not configure the View Connection Server to display a pre-login message.
• Offline Desktop does not work if the virtual machine resides in an NFS datastore (KB 1007639)
• Hitting Alt+Ctrl+Delete while on the login screen for a checked-out desktop freezes the keyboard in the guest (KB 1007640)
• If the session timeout expires while Offline Desktop is running, the desktop selection dialog cannot be reopened (KB 1007641)
• When connecting to a local desktop, the View Client with Offline Desktop will show a message that says "Preparing to run desktop locally..." (KB 1007644)
• When running a desktop locally for the first time, the Windows guest will ask to restart the operating system (KB 1007645)
• After a rollback is performed using the View Administrator, the desktop becomes unavailable in the desktop selection dialog (KB 1007647).
• Offline single sign on fails for checked out desktops (individual or pooled) if the last user who logged on was not in the current domain used for the current check out (KB 1007661)
• Reverting a desktop back to the anchor snapshot after creating a new snapshot prevents future check outs (KB 1007665)

View Composer

• On rare occasion, linked clone deletion might fail, with an error indicating that the MoID is missing.
  Workaround: Manually delete the desktop from VI Client.
• If the system disk of a Master VM is configured as a dynamic disk, linked clones might fail to power on with a blue screen and Stop message 0x0000007B.
  Workaround: Configure the system disk of the Master VM as a basic disk, not a dynamic disk.
• Unable to remove source and replica virtual machines associated with View Composer desktop pools (KB 1008704)
• If the connection to the database is lost during linked clone operations (including linked clone creation, resynchronization, and destruction), View Composer might crash. View Composer will attempt to restart automatically, causing another crash which is logged as a Service cannot be started exception in the Windows event log.
  Workaround: Restart the database server if it is not running. Then restart the View Composer service from the Windows Services control panel.
  
• Re-registering a linked clone in VirtualCenter changes the BIOS UUID of the linked clone (KB 1013505)
• During linked clone creation, the Desktop Sources tab in View Administrator indicates an error status and the error message View Composer agent initialization state error is logged. The error status appears after provisioning and customization.
  Workaround: It is safe to ignore this status. After a couple of minutes, linked clone creation completes successfully.
• Active Directory credentials required to create a linked clone in View Composer (KB 1007697)
• Rebalance fails for existing virtual machines if linked clones are moved another local storage (KB 1007699)
• Non-ASCII user names and passwords for VirtualCenter are not recognized by View Composer. (KB 1007702)
• Static DNS server setting is lost when a recompose is performed from a Windows XP virtual machine to a Windows Vista virtual machine. (KB 1007707)
• Error message might appear when creating linked clones (KB 1007710)
• Virtual machine template list is not refreshed after creating a pool (KB 1007721)
• Cloned virtual machines might show Error state after a transient failure (KB 1007820)

Miscellaneous

• If you use Proxy Auto Configuration (PAC) for proxy server detection (HTTP or file URL formats), View Client fails to connect to the View Connection Server with a Broker request brokerConnect error.
  If you are using the PAC file URL format (file://c:/proxy.pac), View Portal fails to connect to the View Connection Server with a WinHttpGetProxyForUrl error.
  Workaround: View Client does not support PAC proxy server detection.
  If you are using View Portal, you can connect successfully using the PAC HTTP URL format (http://<serverIP>/proxy.pac).
• The first attempt to connect to a desktop that is powered off might fail with the error The connection to the remote computer ended. This can occur when the RDP port has been changed.
  Workaround: Subsequent connections will succeed.
• Though the View 3.1 Client is able to connect to a View 3.0.x Connection Server, using the View 3.1 Client through the View Portal to connect to a View 3.0.x Connection Server can fail with the message Error: There is no secure connection to the Connection Server. Trying to reconnect ....
  Workaround: Install View Client version 3.0.1.
• The View Connection Server does not distinguish between original and cloned virtual machines (KB 1007823)
  
• Client network interruption fails to automatically reconnect to remote desktop(KB 1007619)
• RDP requests not generated by View are not blocked by default (KB 1007626)
• Virtual desktop with display names ending with a backslash (\) cannot be launched from View Portal (KB 1007631)
• Data redirection fails when domain user profile in master virtual machine is used to log in to a clone (KB 1007633)
  

Resolved Issues

The resolved issues are grouped as follows:

• Install and Upgrade
• View Administrator
• View Client
• View Composer
• Miscellaneous
  

Install and Upgrade

• When creating and preparing the guest system, you must install View Agent, after all other third-party applications are installed. If you uninstall View Agent after installing additional third-party applications, certain registry entries for the third-party applications might be lost. After installing View Agent, if you want to install additional third-party applications on the guest, you must first uninstall the View Agent. Applications known to be affected by the installation order include Microsoft AppV, vmSight ConnectorID, and Citrix XenApp.
  This issue is resolved in this release.
• Effect of stopping VMwareVDMDS service on View 3.1 upgrade (KB 1012990)
• Upgrading View 3.1 to 3.1.1 clears View Connection Server settings from LDAP (KB 1013300)

View Administrator

• On rare occasions, View Administrator might display IllegalStateException errors (KB 1011392)
  
• View displays incorrect backup-time of View server (KB 1011390).

View Client

Desktop connections become slow when a View Client is running in a Citrix ICA session
When you connect virtual desktops using a View Client that is running in a Citrix ICA session, the virtual desktop connections are very slow compared to the connections using native RDP (mstsc.exe). This issue occurs because when the View Client runs in full-screen mode, it does not use the native full-screen mode of RDP ActiveX controls, and non full-screen mode does not function properly with Citrix ICA session.
This issue is resolved in this release.

View Composer

• View fails to automatically delete virtual machines in a multi-broker environment
  In a multi-broker environment, when the Power off and delete virtual machine after first use option is enabled for non persistent pool, and many users log out of the virtual machines at the same time, View Manager sometimes fails to delete the virtual machines due to a race condition. The following error might appear in the View Manager logs:
  16:48:40,224 WARN <cn=ad43de08b-0cff-4688-8e4c-cda67bdcafbf,ou=virtualcenter,ou=properties,dc=vdi,dc=vmware,dc=int::PendingOperationSet> [PendingOperationSet] Could not process event: java.lang.NullPointerException com.vmware.vdi.desktopcontroller.PendingOperationSet.run(SourceFile:517)
  java.lang.NullPointerException
  at java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap.hash(Unknown Source)
  at java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap.get(Unknown Source)
  at com.vmware.vdi.desktoptracker.DesktopTracker.getPoolInformation(SourceFile:1832)
  at com.vmware.vdi.desktopcontroller.PendingOperationSet.run(SourceFile:511)
  at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
  The issue is resolved in this release.
• View takes more time to delete virtual machines from a non-persistent pool if you enable Power off and delete virtual machine after first use (KB 1013760)