Horizon 7.2 Help Desk Tool
With the new release of Horizon 7.2 at 20 Jun , VMware introduces an Help desk tool for the first and second line support. In this blog I will describe my experience while using the tool for the first time.
Before using the tool, you must upgrade the connection server and view agent to the newest version 7.2. Also the Horizon Event Database is required.
Note that Linux desktops are not supported.
After the upgrade I was searching for the Url and found it! (https://Serverurl.nl/helpdesk) as in the name 😉
While logging in with the administrator credentials, I got the following error message.
So I create a second admin user, with the required administrator permissions, for viewing and managing the desktop.
In my test environment, I logged in as the user “Kevin” With the Help desk Tool, you can easily view the desktop and Application entitlement besides the current session.
The following screen shows the number of entitlement desktops, in my case there is one Instant Clone Desktop pool.
When the desktop persist an older agent version than 7.2, you will get the following warning
The following actions are available and usable;
- Send Message
- Remote Assistance
- Restart VDI
- Disconnect
- Log off
- Reset
After updating the VDI Desktop with the latest agent, the following output will show
With a single pane, all the necessary information is showing for troubleshooting technical problems like high cpu, memory and latency. you can also see the actual frame rate.
For refreshing the frame rate and TX Bandwidth value, you must close the window and reselect the current session ( it’s faster than using F5 )
Cpu, memory and latency information will be refreshed automatically.
Note that the State duration, Logon Time, Logon Segments and Logon duration default not is showed, until the admin enabled “Timing Profiler” on the connection servers
Use the following vdmadmin command to enable Timing Profiler “Run with elevated privileges “
- vdmadmin -I -timingProfiler -enable -server <ip server>
My personal opinion, VMware brings Horizon to a next level with this awesome help desk tool.
Remote Control
For Remote control, the default Windows remote assistance (MSRA) will be used, there is no need to install third party remote applications. When the It admin hits “Remote Control” a file will be downloaded and opens with MSRA. Open with option must be selected for the first time. default location of MSRA is C:\Windows\System32.
When a connection has been establish, the user must accept the remote control session.
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