VMware has released their Horizon View 7.7 is on 2018 December, and End User Computing technology is growing in everywhere. Few days before, VMware Horizon 7.8 was released with many new features and functionality. This release of Horizon has extended great new features and continues to build on the feature parity of the Horizon Console that will eventually replace the Horizon Administrator (flash client).
Also, it is advised to check the points mentioned ion the official documentation before you proceed with an upgrade
Let’s check what are the new features and enhancements with VMware Horizon 7.8 release.
- Platform support
- HTML 5 Horizon Console Continuing to Add Features
- Scale
- RDSH
- VMware Cloud on AWS – VMC
- Agents
- Horizon GPO Bundle
- Virtual Desktops
- Horizon 7 Cloud Connector
Horizon 7.8 Platform Support
HTML 5 Horizon 7.8 Connection Administration Console
- New HTML5-based management console is replacing the Horizon Administrator “flash” client.
Check Resolved Issue with Horizon 7.8 for more details
VMware Horizon 7.8 Scaling
With Horizon 7.8 VMware scaled below options
- 250,000 total sessions
- 50 pods
- 10,000 sessions per pod
- 15 sites – allowing for greater architectural flexibility
- 7 connection server instances per pod
- 350 total connection server instances
Horizon 7.8 RDSH
- With this new version, VMware provides new improvements to RDSH that are available with Horizon 7.8.
- Client restrictions for published desktops and applications on RDS hosts are expanded to support Organizational Units (OU).
- You can use CPU, memory, disk statistics, and session counts to define the load balancing policy for published desktops and applications on RDS hosts.
VMware Cloud on AWS -VMC
- This will allow you to have vSphere and Horizon cloud in AWS but manage them as they were on-premise.
- Horizon 7.8 with VMware Cloud on AWS is capable of Instant clone desktop pools with NSX-t network segments.
Horizon 7.8 Agent
- With new Horizon 7.8 Agents there are few improvements, find the below
- You can now use regular expressions with URL redirection rules.
- Smart card authentication with UWP apps, such as Microsoft Edge, in remote desktops.
- Helpdesk plugin is included in the Horizon Agent installer.
- VMware Integrated Printing finishing option such as staple or booklet for specific redirected printers.
- When an administrator enables the read-only mode for session collaboration, a client user can invite additional users to join a Windows remote desktop session in read-only mode. Only the primary user can access controls on the remote desktop. Additional users can view the desktop but cannot control or make changes to it.
Horizon GPO Bundle
- The new URL Content Redirection Url Redirection IP Rules Enabled group policy setting enables you to configure an IP address and IP address range filtering for the URL Content Redirection feature.
- The new VMware Horizon Client Drive Redirection ADMX template file (vdm_agent_cdr.admx) contains group policy settings related to the client drive redirection feature. The Display redirected drive with drive letter setting enables you to configure drive letter behavior, and the Timeout for drive letter initialization setting enables you to specify how long to wait for Windows Explorer to initialize and display drive letters for redirected drives.
- The Session Collaboration group policy setting allows you pass input control to collaborators.
- The VMware Integrated Printing group policy settings allow you to specify a filter to redirect a client printer and set print preview options.
Horizon 7 Cloud Connector
- You can set a password expiry policy for the root user for the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance
Virtual Desktops
- Instant clones support the vSphere TRIM and UNMAP features for vSAN datastores.
- You can reuse existing computer accounts to deploy instant clone desktop pools on the domain.
True SSO
- Horizon 5.0 client redesigned to align with Workspace One.
- After users use True SSO to login to the desktop, they can unlock the desktop after re-authentication from the Workspace ONE portal using the same True SSO login credentials.
Horizon Agent for Linux
- Expanded support for RHEL and CentOS 7.6
- Multi-monitor support for HTML Access 5.0
- Smart card redirection for RHEL 7.1 or later
- Expanded OS support for True Single Sign-On (SSO)
- Read-only mode for Session Collaboration – Session collaboration, a client user can invite others in read-only mode.
- Expanded NVIDIA vGPU support for SLED 12.x
Windows Client
- Windows Client maximum number of monitors has been extended to 6.
MAC OS Client
- When in dark mode, the MAC client will reflect this.
IOS Client
- IOS Client – camera redirection with REal-time audio View (RTAV)
- Screen rotation in presentation mode
Domain Security
- When users log in to a Horizon 7 version 7.8 Connection Server from Horizon Client, they might need to enter a domain in the User name text box, for example, domain\username or username@domain.com. Depending on the server configuration, the Domain drop-down menu might be hidden, or it might contain *DefaultDomain*. For details, see the information about the Send domain list and Hide domain list in the client user interface global settings in the VMware Horizon 7 Security document.
- When users log in to a Horizon 7 version 7.8 Connection Server from Horizon Client for Windows, they might need to enter credentials even though they have enabled the Logon as a current user setting. A new configuration setting determines whether a Connection Server will accept the Logon as a current user setting. For details, see the information about the Accept logon as current user setting in the Horizon 7 Administration document.
- For more information on configuring Horizon Connection Server version 7.8 domain settings to work with Horizon Clients earlier than version 5.0
- This release contains new user authentication security improvements that resolve CVE-2019-5513
Reference – VMware Horizon 7.8 Release Notes