Here are the official release notes.

VMware View Manager 3.1 Release Notes

View Manager Version 3.1 | 27 MAY 2009 | Build 167577 (View Manager), 161885 (View Composer) Last Document Update: 27 MAY 2009 Check frequently for additions and updates to these release notes.

These release notes cover the following topics:

• whatsnew
• beforebegin
• knownissues
• fixedissues

What’s New in View Manager 3.1

View Manager 3.1 includes the following enhancements:

• Performance Improvements - Login times are significantly improved and server utilization is reduced.
• Automated LDAP Data and View Composer Database Backup - You can now configure automated backup of LDAP data and View Composer databases in View Administrator, enabling disaster recovery.
• Client Information - Information about the client device that the end user is connecting from is now provided for the desktop session as registry settings. This enables customers to use third party tools or create custom scripts to map local printers to devices. The information available includes the device name, IP address, and MAC address.
• Improved Logging - Debug logs are now enabled by default. Logging has been improved to provide more informational messages with minimal performance impact.
• Edit Desktop Wizard Navigation - Improved wizard navigation enables you to quickly modify existing desktop pools.
• USB Improvements - View 3.1 offers more reliable and broader device support with reduced bandwidth consumption. A separate TCP/IP stream is used.
• Multimedia Redirection (MMR) for Windows Vista - MMR is now supported in Windows Vista environments. MMR technology delivers the multimedia stream directly to the client using an RDP virtual channel instead of decoding and rendering it with RDP. This enables full fidelity playback in View Client.
• Adobe Flash Bandwidth Reduction - The Adobe Flash bandwidth reduction feature improves end-user productivity when browsing Adobe Flash content.
• Multi-Protocol Support - View Client can now use HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) as the display protocol when connecting to HP Blade PCs, HP Workstations, and HP Blade Workstations. The connection is brokered by View Manager. HP RGS is a display protocol from HP that allows a user to access the desktop of a remote computer over a standard network. VMware View 3.1 supports HP RGS Version 5.2.5. VMware does not bundle or license HP RGS with View 3.1. Please contact HP to license a copy of HP RGS software version 5.2.5 to use with View 3.1. This release does not support HP RGS connections to virtual machines.

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Before You Begin

Before you begin installing and configuring VMware View components, review the following guidelines.

General Installation Guidelines

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

• View Client with Offline Desktop is an experimental feature. Install the VMware View Client with Offline Desktop if you are going 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.
• Install VMware Infrastructure 3 Version 3.5 Update 3 or Update 4 – Install VMware Infrastructure 3 Version 3.5 Update 3 or Update 4 if you want to use the View Composer or Offline Desktop features. When upgrading, strictly follow the recommendations in the VMware VirtualCenter Upgrade Guide.
• Synchronize time - Use the VMware Tools time synchronization function to ensure that virtual machines are synchronized with real time. (KB 1318)
• 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 VirtualCenter guest customization specification if you intend to use one - Make sure that the guest customization specification in VirtualCenter is accurate. You should use VirtualCenter 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:

• installer
• upgrade
• admin_ui
• client
• common_accessCAC
• offline_desktopoffline_vdi
• composer<!–

<li><a href=”#desktopaccess”>Unified Access</a></li> –>

• miscellaneous

Installation

• View 3.1 Agent must be installed last, after any other third-party applications are installed. View Agent must also be uninstalled first. If you install other third-party applications after installing View 3.1 Agent, and then uninstall View Agent, it is possible to lose certain registry entries for the other third-party applications. Some applications known to be affected by the installation order are: Microsoft AppV, vmSight ConnectorID, and Citrix Presenter.
  Workaround: If you need to install another third-party application after installing View Agent, uninstall View Agent, install the other third-party applications, and then install View Agent.
• 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 hangs.
  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)<!– http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=319512

<li> <a href=”http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007605″ target=”_blank”><strong>During installation of the View Agent on an unmanaged machine, specifying a View Connection Server name with non-ASCII characters is not supported</strong></a> (KB 1007605) </li> –><!– http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=328821
<li><strong><a href=”http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007606″ target=”_blank”>Agent installation fails if the fully qualified domain name of the View server contains Japanese characters</a> </strong> (KB 1007606) </li> –>

• No warning message is generated that desktops are checked out when you uninstall the View Client with Offline Desktop (KB 1007607)

Upgrade

• Desktops connected from View Client version 3.1 cannot connect to local USB devices if the Connection Server is version 2.x or 3.0, unless the View Agent is upgraded to version 3.1. The error message is Device could not be diverted. Virtual device could not be connected.
  Workaround: Upgrade the View Agent to version 3.1.
• 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

• If you press the F5 key to refresh the page while configuring a desktop pool, a Java exception might occur.
  Workaround: Do not press F5. If the exception occurs, you must close all running Web browser instances and then restart them.
• When using View Administrator with Internet Explorer 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 800×600.
  Workaround: Change the screen resolution to 1024×768.
• On rare occasion, View Administrator might display IllegalStateException errors.
  Workaround: Restart the VMware View Connection Server service.
  If this error occurs, a file named facelet_error<nnnnn>.html, containing detailed information about the exception, is created in the log directory C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VDM\logs. VMware Technical Support might ask you to send these files, in addition to vdm-support script output, for troubleshooting.
  Note: The facelet_error<nnnnn>.html log files are small, but they are not deleted automatically. You can delete them manually to reclaim disk space.
• 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 (Adam Instance VMwareVDMDS) causes an error if no other directory service servers can be contacted in an environment with more than one View Connection Server.(KB 1007591)

View Client

• <!– <a href=”http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=384482″>http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=384482</a><br>
  –>MMR might not work in View Clients connecting to a Windows virtual desktop that has been restarted in VirtualCenter.

Workaround: Unregister and re-register WMRVFilter.dll in the virtual machine as follows:

• 1. Change to the directory <drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Wyse TCX MMR Server
  2. regsvr32 /u WMRVFilter.dll
  3. regsvr32 WMRVFilter.dll
  4. Restart the media player.
• 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.

• <!– <a href=”http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=348146″>http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=348146</a><br>
  –>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.

• Setting the “Automatic logoff after disconnect” policy for an individual desktop or desktop pool results in unexpected behavior when a user is already connected to that desktop through another client (KB 1007581)
• View Portal on Mac OS does not support connection to Windows Vista desktops (KB 1007584)

Common Access Card

• View Client with Offline Desktop does not work with CAC authentication (KB 1007608)
• Users connecting to the View Administrator or View Portal through a View Connection Server that has CAC Authentication enabled are prompted to select a certificate even though it will not be used or there is not a certificate to select (KB 1007609)
• Entering an invalid PIN for CAC authentication redirects to the wrong login screen (KB 1007618)

Offline Desktop (Experimental)

• <!– <a href=”http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=378270″>http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=378270</a><br>
  –>If you attempt to perform an offline operation that requires reauthentication 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) .<!– http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=334674

<li><strong><a href=”http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007649″ target=”_blank”>Canceling a desktop check in and then rolling back a desktop prevents checking out the desktop at a later time</a> </strong> (KB 1007649) </li> –>

• 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 0×0000007B.
  Workaround: Configure the system disk of the Master VM as a basic disk, not a dynamic disk.
• Occasionally, the deletion of a desktop pool of linked clones fails. When deletion fails, you cannot remove the leftover “replica-” and “source-” virtual machines from VirtualCenter because they are protected entities.
  Workaround: To delete an unused replica or source virtual machine, first use the SviConfig command to unprotect the entity. For example:
  SviConfig -operation=UnprotectEntity -VcUrl=https://<my.vc>/sdk -Username=<MyUser> -Password=<MyPass> -InventoryPath=”/<My Datacenter>/vm/<MyReplicaFolder>/replica-<xxx>”
  Note: The SviConfig utility does not check to see if the replica is being used by other linked clones. If a replica is being used by other linked clones, those linked clones cannot be powered on, refreshed, or recomposed after the replica is unprotected or deleted. These unusable linked clones should be deleted.
  You can, however, provision new linked clones from the same desktop pool. A new replica will be created for newly provisioned linked clone desktops.
• <!– <a href=”http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=375636″>http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=375636</a><br>
  –>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.

• <!– <a href=”http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=373537″>http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=373537</a><br>
  –>If you unregister and then re-register a linked clone in VirtualCenter 2.5 update 3 or earlier, the BIOS UUID of the linked clone is changed.

Also, when a host is disconnected from and then reconnected to VirtualCenter, the BIOS UUIDs of the virtual machines on that host are changed.
Workaround: After unregistering a linked clone, restart VirtualCenter before re-registering the linked clone.
If a host is disconnected, restart VirtualCenter before reconnecting the host to preserve BIOS UUID of that host’s virtual machines.

• <!– <a href=”http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=387719″>http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=387719</a><br>
  –>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.

• To create a linked clone, you must have sufficient permissions on the Active Directory server on which the computer account will be created. The permissions required are Create Computer Objects and Delete Computer Objects. This Knowledge Base article describes how to configure those permissions. (KB 1007697)
• If linked clones are created on one ESX server’s local storage and you change the storage to another ESX server’s local storage by editing the desktop, the rebalance operation results in a failure for the virtual machines that have already been created. (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)
• During the creation of linked clones, the following message may appear in the VirtualCenter client: “The MAC address (xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx) of vm2 conflicts with MAC assigned to vm1.” (KB 1007710)
• The template list is not refreshed if the administrator returns to the VirtualCenter selection page and checks the “Use linked clone technology to create desktops in this pool” checkbox while creating a pool. (KB 1007721)
• After transient failure of networks, datastores, services, and the View server, you can bring linked clones back to a ready state from error state after a reset, recompose, refresh, or rebalance as described in this Knowledge Base article. (KB 1007820)

<!–
<h3><a name=”desktopaccess”></a>Unified Access </h3>
<ul>
http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=340168, 306538
<li><strong><a href=”http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007634″ target=”_blank”>View Client does not reconnect to a disconnected session in Windows Terminal Server 2008</a> </strong>
(1007634) </li>
</ul>
–>

General – 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)
• If users lose network connectivity from View Clients to a guest virtual machine running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or Windows XP Service Pack 3, they may not regain connectivity automatically (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)
• If the master virtual machine contains a domain user profile and the that profile is used to log into a clone as the first user, data redirection is affected for other domain users (KB 1007633)

Resolved Issues

The Resolved Issues are grouped as follows:

• fixed_installer
• fixed_admin_ui
• fixed_client
• fixed_offline_desktop
• fixed_common_access
• fixed_composer
• fixed_desktopaccess
• fixed_miscellaneous

Installation

• Clean installation of the Connection Server fails when the default security on the parent directory of the installation directory is altered (1008425)
• Unmanaged View Agent installation fails if computer description is zero length (1008432)

View Administrator

• The wizard for creating and editing desktop pools permits you to enter pool sizes that exceed the capacity of selected datastores (KB 1007559)
• If the desktop display name is removed, it still displays in the desktop list (KB 1007589)
• Power off and delete after first use setting may not work correctly when used in combination with a desktop reset (KB 1007590)

View Client

• View Portal on Mac OS cannot connect to Windows Terminal Servers when using a tunneled connection (KB 1007585)
• View Manager does not support connecting to desktop sessions on operating systems configured to require Network Level Authentication (NLA) for remote desktop connections (KB 1007587)
• Switch Desktop option behaves incorrectly when a user is connected to more than three desktops at the same time (KB 1007601)

Offline Desktop

• Non-ASCII characters in the default check out folder name cause check out to fail (KB 1007642)
• By default, the check out folder uses the desktop display name (KB 1007643)
• All offline sessions associated with a View Connection Server are displayed after a rollback (KB 1007646)
• Desktop check out only works when the client and server are located in the same locale (KB 1007660)

Common Access Card

• When using both CAC and SecurID, users can change the SecurID user name when “Enforce SecurID and Windows user name matching” is selected (KB 1007610)

View Composer

• If a non-administrator logs in to a linked clone and the administrator refreshes the master image for that clone, when the user logs in again, View incorrectly creates a new user profile with “username.domain name”
• If a snapshot is taken on a linked clone, refresh and recompose operations are not supported (KB 1007694)
• The Edit Image operation fails with the error “Specified AD container partial distinguished name is not valid” after performing a recompose if you have recently changed the AD container in the pool (KB 1007695)
• If the administrator’s Active Directory password is changed on the Active Directory server but is not changed on the View Composer server, the administrator will receive an AdOperationErrorFault instead of an AdAuthenticationFault error message (KB 1007701)<!– http://bugzilla.eng.vmware.com/show_bug.cgi?id=322007

<li><strong><a href=”http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007703″>”Active Directory Server is not available”</a></strong> <a href=”http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007703″ target=”_blank”><strong>message is generated if AD credentials provided for QuickPrep are not valid</strong></a> (KB 1007703) </li> –>

• If a refresh operation is initialized on a group of linked clones and the View Composer server is down, the refresh operation will fail and leave some of the clones in an error state and some in the “Task halted” state (KB 1007704)
• View Composer uses first available disk slot to add disks which may result in “user data disk” getting added before “system disk.” (KB 1007706)
• When a user profile is redirected to a user data disk, the DACLs of the “Default User” and “All Users” profiles are not the same as the DACLs of the files in the original directory (KB 1007708)
• The distinguished name of the Active Directory container where the computer accounts of the linked clones will be created is not validated when creating a deployment group (KB 1007709)
• Sometimes a recompose or refresh operation can fail in some cases with the message VcUnexpectedErrorFault(reason=’Incompatible device backing specified’) (KB 1007714)
• The View Composer server shuts down after losing a DB connection (KB 1007715)
• Linked Clone Desktop creation or recompose operations can fail with the message VcUnexpectedErrorFault(reason=DuplicateNameFault) when the replica folder is not present in VirtualCenter (KB 1007716)
• While a View Composer pool is being provisioned, the user and OS disk columns are empty until all the virtual machines in the pool exist and if a virtual machine in the pool is missing, the OS and user datastore columns are emptyhttp://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007720(KB 1007720)
• Pool wizard only shows one datastore in View Administrator when the template for the selected pool is created using a “convert to template” operation on a virtual machine with snapshots (KB 1007722)
• Attempting to add an automated desktop pool using linked clone technology fails after re-initializing the View Composer database and generates an “Invalid value for parameter vcConfigId passed to SVI function” error message (KB 1007723)
• The first attempt to add a domain administrator to the VC configuration in View Manager fails (KB 1007837)
• Desktop Composer installation fails when the VirtualCenter server language is set to Swedish (KB 1007915)

Unified Access

• Uninstalling the View Agent will not remove registry entries, stop services, or remove directories when there is an active View Session on Windows Terminal Server (KB 1007603, KB 1007636)

General – Miscellaneous

• The View Agent installation may show the virtual printing component but actual printing support may not be available (KB 1007621)
• Renaming or removing a datastore in ESX after creating a pooled desktop causes unexpected behavior (KB 1007623)
• On some Windows XP embedded devices, the “Auto-connect to this desktop” menu setting is unchecked when in fact that setting is enabled (KB 1007624)
• If a user is entitled to two or more local desktops and is running them simultaneously, all error messages and dialogs are associated with the first desktop that you open (KB 1007625)
• Passwords cannot contain high-ASCII characters. Only characters 0-127 can be used for passwords (KB 1007628)
• Provisioning operation fails when the desktop pool name is not unique in that VirtualCenter location (1008430)

Posted under: Uncategorized, VMWare View

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