VMware Horizon View 7.9 Released

The VMware Horizon 7 version 7.9 release includes many new features and enhancements to Horizon Connection Server and Horizon Agent including continuing to build on the feature parity of Horizon Console, the HTML5-based web console that will eventually replace Horizon Administrator.

Let’s see what are the new updates on Horizon View 7.9 from the official release note

What’s New in Horizon View 7.9

VMware Horizon 7 version 7.9 provides the following new features and enhancements. This information is grouped by installable component.

• Product Enhancements
• Horizon Connection Server On-Premises
• Horizon Agent for Linux
• Horizon Agent
• Horizon GPO Bundle
• Horizon Client
• Horizon 7 Cloud Connector
• Horizon 7 Deployed on VMware Cloud on AWS

Product Enhancements

The VMware Horizon 7 version 7.9 release includes many new features and enhancements to Horizon Connection Server and Horizon Agent including continuing to build on the feature parity of Horizon Console, the HTML5-based web console that will eventually replace Horizon Administrator.

Horizon Connection Server On-Premises

Horizon Console (HTML5-based Web Interface)
Add, edit, or remove an instant-clone domain administrator.

• View the number of published desktop sessions for farms or registered machines.
• Configure event reporting and monitor events.
• Monitor published desktop and application sessions.
• Configure smart card authentication.
• Perform enhanced role-based delegated administration including privileges and roles for custom roles in Horizon Console.
• The Horizon Console user interface contains updated icons.
• View the image, pending image, and task columns for an RDS host for a farm.
• Configure the multi-session mode feature for published applications.
• Configure global settings that affect client sessions and connections and set global security settings for client sessions and connections in Horizon Console.
• Select whether and when to refresh the OS disks when creating an instant-clone desktop pool.
• Determine whether to allow ESXi hosts to reclaim unused disk space on instant clones that are created in space-efficient disk format when creating an instant-clone desktop pool. The space reclamation feature reduces the total storage space required for instant clone desktops.
• Publish and launch Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications.
• Change or remove the icon of a published application.

Horizon Administrator

• You can use Horizon Administrator to configure additional options such as “Always”, “Log to file on error (default)”, and “Never” to enable event log messages to be generated and stored in Syslog format in log files. These options are not available in Horizon Console.

Cloud Pod Architecture

• The Home Site Override tab is separated from the Users and Groups tab in Horizon Console. To configure a home site override in Horizon Console in Horizon 7 version 7.9, select Inventory > Global Entitlements, select the name of the global entitlement to associate with the home site, and click the Home Site Override tab.
• You can use the Search Sessions feature in Horizon Console to view desktop and application sessions across the pod federation.

Published Desktops and Applications

• You can publish and launch Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications.

Virtual Desktops

• When creating an instant clone, you can select whether and when to refresh the OS disks.
• When creating an instant clone, you can determine whether to allow ESXi hosts to reclaim unused disk space on instant clones that are created in space-efficient disk format. The space reclamation feature reduces the total storage space required for instant clone desktops.

Horizon Agent for Linux

• Expanded OS support for smart card redirection
  Smart card redirection allows client users to authenticate into a Linux desktop using a smart card reader connected to the client system. Horizon 7 version 7.9 supports smart card redirection on Linux desktops running the following distributions: 
  • Ubuntu 18.04
  • Ubuntu 16.04
  • SLED 12 SP3
  • SLES 12 SP3
  • SLED 11 SP4

• Enhanced system performance with single-thread architecture for user sessions
  Beginning with version 7.9, Horizon Agent for Linux features a Java NIO solution that uses a single thread to handle all connection sessions to the desktop. Previous versions opened a separate thread for each session. The new single-thread architecture improves performance by reducing the use of system resources.

Horizon Agent

• Remoting Protocols
  • Horizon 7 version 7.9 is required to support Microsoft Media Server (MMS) and Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP).
  • NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs are now validated and supported with Horizon 7 across Windows 10 VDI, Windows Server 2016 and 2019. Blast Extreme can offload H.264, H.265, and graphics to the T4 GPUs.
  • Blast log files rotation has been improved to take up less disk space and reduce production issues.

• Remote Experience
  • Microsoft Teams application has been validated and works with Real-Time Audio-Video. For a good experience, you need a minimum setting of 4vCPU 4GB RAM as a published desktop configuration and RTAV video resolution configured with 640 x 480p.
  • You can redirect biometric devices, specifically fingerprint scanners, that are plugged into a USB port on a Windows client system, to virtual desktops.
  • You can redirect card readers that are plugged into a USB port over PCoIP virtual channel on a Windows client system to virtual desktops.
  • Several enhancements have been made to VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business. These include:
    • Proxy support for Win 7 Clients
    • Improved audio quality in fallback mode for RDSH 2016 and 2019 terminal service sessions
    • Support for Skype for Business 2019 Server
    • Support for Mac Client IPV6
  • VMware Integrated Printing supports more Universal Print Driver (UPD) print settings for redirected UPD printers from Windows client machines.
  • You can use VMware Integrated Printing with Horizon Client 5.1 for Linux and Horizon Client 5.1 for Mac.
  • The following Wacom signature pads are supported in this release:
    • Wacom STU-520A
    • Wacom STU-530G
    • Wacom STU-500
    • Wacom DTU-1031
    • Wacom Intuos Pro
  • Updated Windows display specifications require Windows 10 version 1803 or later for six monitor support.
  • Windows 10 notifications can be redirected to the client in an application session.
  • You can use HTML5 Multimedia Redirection with Horizon Client 5.1 for Linux.

Horizon GPO Bundle

• The VMware View Agent Configuration ADMX template file (vdm_agent.admx) contains a new VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business group policy setting, Disable extended filter for acoustic echo cancellation in VMware Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business.
• The VMware Horizon Client Drive Redirection ADMX template file (vdm_agent_cdr.admx) contains two new Device Filtering group policy settings, Exclude Vid/Pid Device and Include Vid/Pid Device. You can use these settings to exclude or include devices that have specific vendor and product IDs when users use the client drive redirection feature.
• The Horizon PCoIP ADMX template file (pcoip.admx) and VMware Blast ADMX template file (vdm_blast.admx) contain two new group policy settings, Configure drag and drop formats and Configure drag and drop size threshold, to configure drag and drop behavior.

Horizon Client

For information about new features in Horizon Client 5.1, including HTML Access 5.1, see the release notes on the Horizon Clients Documentation page.

Horizon 7 Cloud Connector

This is a required component for Horizon 7.6 and later to support the following new features:

• Subscription licenses as part of a Workspace One Enterprise bundle. See the Horizon 7 Installation guide on the Horizon 7 Documentation page.
• Cloud Monitoring Services (CMS) features as part of Horizon Cloud Service. See the Horizon Cloud Administration Guide on the Horizon Cloud Service Documentation page. New CMS features include:
  • Report for users, applications, desktop, and utilization for cloud-connected Horizon 7 pods
  • 7-day session history for the Help Desk Tool
  • Horizon cloud-connected session metrics and health status

Horizon 7 Deployed on VMware Cloud on AWS

• Manual desktop pools are now supported for vSphere virtual machines running Windows or Linux.
• Horizon 7 supports the use of SDDC1.7.
• Horizon 7 supports the use of the following AWS services:
  • AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory
  • Events database on the Amazon Relational Database Service
• For a list of Horizon 7 features supported on VMware Cloud on AWS, see the VMware Knowledge Base article 58539.