What’s New with VMware Horizon 7 Version 7.7

VMware Horizon 7 version 7.7 and VMware Horizon Client 4.10 are now available! Because there are so many new features and enhancements, we’ve grouped them according to the benefits that enterprises find most valuable. Even so, we couldn’t fit them all in. (Several sets of release notes are required for the complete list.)

Compatibility Updates and New OS Support

• 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.
• Upgrades can now be performed on the Horizon 7 Cloud Connector virtual appliance. This appliance is used for integrating the Horizon Cloud Service with Horizon 7 on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS deployments.
• VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business can now be used in an IPv6 environment.
• Horizon Clients include support for recent OS releases, including macOS 10.14 (Mojave) and Android 9.1.

Management Console Improvements

• Horizon Console (the new HTML5 console) additions:
  • You can now use the new Horizon Console to add manual desktop pools and View Composer linked-clone desktop pools, as well as attach, detach, edit, and delete persistent disks used for linked-clone desktops. Previously, performing these tasks required using the classic, Flash-based management console, Horizon Administrator.
  • On the Machines page, you can quickly identify when someone other than the assigned user is connected to a VM. Rather than having just one column called User, there are now two columns: a Connected User column and an Assigned User column. This feature is also available in Horizon Administrator.

• Horizon Administrator (the classic console, which requires Flash) enhancements:
  • The System Health dashboard now displays details about registered VMware Unified Access Gateway appliances, for version 3.4 and later.

• • The name of the Connection Server pod is now displayed in the title bar and on the browser tab.

• Help Desk Tool enhancement: Administrators can end an application process for an end user. The event database logs the action, including details such as the date and time, desktop or application name, pool name, and administrator’s name.

Scalability Enhancements

• You can use a single vCenter Server instance with multiple pods in a Cloud Pod Architecture environment.
• The number of servers an RDSH server farm can contain has increased from 200 to 500.
• vMotion support has been added for linked-clone desktop pools and automated desktop pools that contain full virtual machines.
• vMotion support has also been added for vGPU-enabled full-clone, instant-clone, and linked-clone VMs.

Security and Reliability Features and Improvements

• With the new 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.
• 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.
• TLS 1.0 is now disabled by default in all clients.

User Experience Enhancements

• Blast Extreme enhancements:
  • You can now use the Blast Extreme display protocol to access physical PCs and workstations. Some limitations apply.
  • Available for Windows clients, Blast Extreme HEVC (H.265) video coding support doubles the data compression ratio at the same quality, or improves quality at the same bit rate, as H.264.
    Requires an NVIDIA GRID environment with NVIDIA hardware encoders and client devices whose hardware supports HEVC for decoding.
• For Windows client devices:
  • When client-drive redirection is enabled, users can drag and drop files and folders between the client system and remote desktops and published applications.
    For example, users can drag multiple files and folders at the same time, or drag a single file into an open app to insert the text into the app, or drag a single file to Outlook to add it as an attachment.
  • The new VMware Virtual Print feature enables users to print to any printer available on their Windows client computers, similar to the ThinPrint virtual printing feature. But VMware Virtual Print supports client printer redirection, as well as location-based printing, and it persists printer settings that end users configure
• For RDSH published apps and desktops:
  • Administrators can specify whether users can open multiple, separate instances of the same application on different client devices, or initiate separate sessions to a desktop from different client devices. This feature is called multi-session mode. Requires Horizon Client 4.10.
  • On Windows clients, users can assign an RDSH-published application to a single monitor or a combination of monitors.
  • A new hybrid logon feature can now be used in conjunction with the unauthenticated user access feature. Unauthenticated access lets users access apps without logging in. Hybrid logon provides users with domain access to network resources such as file shares and printers without prompting for domain user credentials. Requires Horizon Client 4.10.

VMware Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS Enhancements

VMware Cloud on AWS allows you to create vSphere data centers on Amazon Web Services. These vSphere data centers include vCenter Server for managing your data center, vSAN for storage, and VMware NSX for networking. With Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS, you can scale Horizon 7 desktops and applications on an elastic cloud platform.

This release of Horizon 7 is compatible with VMware Cloud on AWS (SDDC Version 1.5) and includes the following enhancements:

• vSphere clusters: The minimum vSphere cluster size has been reduced to 3 nodes, and vSphere stretched clusters are now supported.
• Additional VMware components: VMware NSX-T network virtualization, as well as VMware vSAN datastore encryption, are supported.
• Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition components: VMware User Environment Manager, VMware App Volumes, and VMware Instant Clone Technology are all now supported.

VMware Horizon 7 for Linux Enhancements and Features

• Linux desktops are now supported on Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS.
• Single sign-on (SSO) is now supported on SLED/SLES 12.x desktops.
• Audio-in is now supported on SLED/SLES desktops .
• Instant-clone floating desktop pool support is now available on SLED/SLES desktops .
• 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 Linux desktops are allowed to perform an offline domain join with Active Directory using Samba.

For a more visual approach to learning about the new features, be sure to check out this What’s New video by Hilko Lantiga.

For a complete list of new features, grouped by installable component, see the VMware Horizon 7 Version 7.7 Release Notes.

Also, see the following release notes:

• Client-specific release notes, available from the VMware Horizon Client Documentation page
• Unified Access Gateway 3.4 Release Notes, available from the VMware Unified Access Gateway Documentation page

For all the latest content, be sure to stop by Digital Workspace Tech Zone.