Thursday, June 6, 2019

HVE ConneXions Improves Virtualization Environments - Healthchecks, Upgrades, New Installations

www.hveconnexions.com
info@hveconnexions.com

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

VMWare Horizon View Persona Management - Extremly Long/Slow Logoff in Windows 10

With Windows 10 and Persona Management there are several issues that are arising and recommendations are to use UEM. However, several customers cannot afford the upgrade nor have the time to change the complete environment. First I recommend Windows 10 Build 1709. Then below are a couple of links and some procedures that can help out.

Notes:

Windows 10 and 5-10 Minute logoff issues with VMWare. Now this occurs on 7.3.2+ builds with Windows 10 (all builds) and the registry and GPO Policy needs to be applied.

Please ensure this is applied to Persona environment. This issue has been a real pain to resolve but with Floating pools and Persona management this must be applied to all accounts. Tested and is working great!!!

                WaitToKillServiceTimeout
                https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976045.aspx

                WaitToKillAppTimeout
                 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978624.aspx

                HungAppTimeout
                https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978614.aspx

                AutoEndTasks
                https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978604.aspx

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "AutoEndTasks"="1"
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] “AutoEndTasks”=”1"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control] -- “WaitToKillServiceTimeout”=”1000″

Then Enable this policy within the Persona GPO

Some helpful links:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2016416

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/578690

https://www.simonlong.co.uk/blog/vmware-view-persona-management/

Recommend on all Horizon View Images Prior to Provisioning: Provisioning VMware Horizon View desktops fails with error: View Composer Agent initialization error (16): Failed to activate software license

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1026556

Provisioning VMware Horizon View desktops fails with error: View Composer Agent initialization error (16): Failed to activate software license

Details

By default, the View Composer QuickPrep process uses Microsoft Key Management Service (KMS) to activate Windows 7 and Windows Vista guest operating systems. To ensure that View Composer properly activates the operating systems on linked-clone desktops, you must use KMS license activation on the parent virtual machine.

QuickPrep does not use other volume activation methods such as Multiple Activation Key (MAK) licensing.

If you are using MAK based licensing, you may not be able to deploy pools and you may see this error when deployment fails:

view composer agent initialization error (16): Failed to activate software license (waited 0 seconds)

Note: This error may also occur with KMS licensing if the View desktop time is not properly synchronized with the domain. To resolve this issue, correct the time synchronization issue and redeploy the pool.

Solution

View Composer does not natively support MAK license activation.

Workaround

Note: Before applying the workaround, ensure:

You must obtain and comply with the licenses required to operate any third party software, including Windows guest operating systems.
Use MAK license activation with a View Composer at your own risk, as it is not supported by VMware Technical Support.
Each recompose operation can increase the MAK license count. This may result in the unexpected depletion of MAK licenses.
For information on activation errors, see Windows 7 KMS activation fails on View virtual desktops (2009481) and Linked-Clone pool deployment fails when Windows volume license does not activate in pool desktop (1035519).

To enable QuickPrep to activate licenses:

In the guest operating system on the parent virtual machine, start the Windows Registry Editor and navigate to this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmware-viewcomposer-ga
Navigate to the AllowActivateMAKLicense registry value. The default value is 0.
Set the value to 1.

To skip the license activation step:

In the guest operating system on the parent virtual machine, start the Windows Registry Editor and navigate to this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmware-viewcomposer-ga
Navigate to the SkipLicenseActivation registry value. The default value is 0.
Set the value to 1.

Note: This allows you to deploy Horizon View Desktops in a non activated state, which must be manually activated.

For Windows 10 OS to locate SkipLicenseActivation navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Services\vmware-viewcomposer-ga

vGPU Technology is rapidly gaining acceptance for VDI Environments

Below are some great resources and information regarding vGPU technologies and how HVE ConneXions (www.hveconnexions.com) is gaining ground as a leader in this industry.

http://hveconnexions.com/WebData/PDF/61d44b10-e5f5-4a7b-bf1f-14c3a544a555-.pdf

http://hveconnexions.com/WebData/PDF/61547fe4-78d5-46d8-a2e5-a92830cf658e-.pdf

Windows 10 Optimization Links for VDI Environment

Here are a couple of great links and whitepapers that discus Windows 10 optimization for VDI Environments. Basically, build 1709 seems to be the most stable for VDI environments in my experience.

https://www.hiveio.com/whitepapers/download-id/1530/

https://www.ituda.com/vmware-horizon-view-windows-10-golden-image-creation/

And a great tool for almost any VDI Environment (Although stated for Horizon View, I use this with Citrix and other VDI solutions)

https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool

Johan van Amersfoort and Niels Hagoort present a deep dive on CPUs and GPUs with vSphere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzLyHxIjHDE

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