The VMguy

Fresh off the announcement from about 2 weeks ago View 5.1 is available and can be downloaded here.  Although there are not many surprises from the announcement, you can read the what’s new section from the release notes.  Get downloading and testing.

VMware View 5.1 delivers important features and enhancements that improve the performance, security, management, and flexibility of virtual desktops. This release of VMware View adds the following new features and support.

• Advanced storage options that leverage vSphere 5.0 - The following performance optimizations and integration features take advantage of vSphere 5.0 enhancements:
• View Storage Accelerator uses Content Based Read Cache (CBRC) - CBRC is an ESXi 5.0 server memory cache of common blocks. During peak I/O workloads such as logon boot storms, View desktops can access common blocks of the OS disk and shared applications in the main memory cache, improving performance, enhancing the user experience, and saving storage array costs.
• Tech Preview: View Composer Array Integration with VAAI - Additional View Composer cloning options leverage the vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) Native Cloning capability of Network Attached Storage (NAS). Note: The storage vendors developing support for NFS native cloning (VAAI) need additional certification to support the View workload. CBRC is not supported with the NFS native cloning feature.
• Customizable View Composer disposable disk drive letter.
• Support for up to 32 hosts in a cluster when Network File System (NFS) is in use. (The former limit was 8 hosts per cluster.)
• Improved USB support.
• Radius two-factor authentication support.
• View Administrator user interface (UI) enhancements - These include context menus, linking to saved View Administrator pages, enhanced table column viewing, and globalization and localization in five languages.
• Support for pre-created Active Directory machine accounts.
• Optional customer experience improvement program. View collects anonymous data about View usage to help make View more responsive to customer needs. No user-identifiable data is collected. You can opt in or out of the program at any time.
• View Persona Management is supported on physical computers - View Persona Management (virtual profiles) can manage user profiles across physical computers and View desktops. Simultaneous sessions are not supported.
• View Persona Management user profile migration - The View Persona Management utility migrates Windows user profiles from Windows XP to Windows 7. The utility migrates profiles from physical computers to View or from View to View.
• Standalone View Composer server - View supports the installation of the View Composer server on a standalone machine separate from VMware vCenter Server.

Was not expecting this one so quickly.  Get ready to get downloading here.

Some great info in the what’s new from the View Manager Release Notes:

This maintenance release includes the following components:

• VMware View Connection Server 5.0.1, which also includes replica server, security server, and View Transfer Server
• VMware View Agent 5.0.1
• VMware View Client for Windows 5.0.1

VMware View 5.0.1 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues in the previous releases. For details, see the Resolved Issues section.

VMware View 5.0.1 includes the following new features:

• New bundled Mac OS X client - The new PCoIP-enabled View Client for Mac OS X is now bundled with this release. For more information, see the VMware View Client for Mac OS X Release Notes.
• Client SSL requirement - View Client for Windows 5.0.1, View Client 1.4 for Mac OS X, and the other View 1.4 clients require SSL for connections to View Connection Server. Therefore, you must enter a fully qualified domain name for View Connection Server, rather than an IP address, in the View Server field of View Client.By default, View Client then checks the server certificate that View Connection Server presents. For more information, see the topics about configuring certificate checking in the VMware View Installation document and in the Using VMware View Client documents for the various platforms of View Client.

Last night, VMware released Fusion 4.1.  You can update your installation by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the title bar.  You can also go straight to the download here.  As always, here’s the What’s New section from the release notes:

Smart Full Screen

Full screen mode provides better productivity and consistency with Mac OS X Lion than previous versions.

The Lion full-screen button is used in virtual machine windows.

The Lion full-screen keyboard shortcut (Cmd-Control-F) is now supported in addition to Cmd-Control-Return.

Like other full-screen Lion applications, a VMware Fusion virtual machine moves to a new space when all displays are connected to the virtual machine.

Switching to Full Screen mode on a secondary display uses the whole display but does not create a new space, which enables you to work in other Mac applications while the virtual machine makes full use of the secondary display.

The VMware Fusion menu bar and toolbar are now accessible from Full Screen mode. A short delay in showing the menu allows access the top of the virtual machine screen, particularly when running Mac OS X Lion in a virtual machine.

A redesigned, compact minibar that you can drag for quick access to common actions without leaving Full Screen mode.

Automatic virtual machine power on

Virtual machines can now be powered on automatically when VMware Fusion starts. You can override this setting by holding Shift when VMware Fusion starts. This feature was removed in VMware Fusion 4 but is now available in VMware Fusion 4.1 in the General settings for every virtual machine.

Improved animations

Improved animations for full screen mode, unity mode, library and snapshots.

Fast screen resizing and improved startup time

Faster screen resizing (Microsoft Hotfix 2522761 recommended), faster transitions into Unity and Full Screen modes, and improved startup time with Windows 7 virtual machines.

Improved Mac OS X Lion guest operating system support

Improved Mac OS X Lion virtual machine support including smoother mouse movements and support for File Vault 2 when using Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later. Upated VMware Tools disable sleep on older versions of Mac OS X virtual machines.

Improved graphics performance

Improved graphics performance and correctness for Internet Explorer 9 and Solidworks 2012 and improved graphics performance when using Mac OS X 10.7.2.

VMware Fusion 4.1 also resolves the following issues:

An intermittent problem when plugging in a new USB device that resulted in error 4.

Improved support for resizing NTFS formatted disks.

An intermittent issue connecting USB devices attached via a Thunderbolt display.

An intermittent issue installing Mac OS X Lion from physical media.

Improved compatibility of shared folders for many applications.

An issue installing VMware Tools on Ubuntu 11.10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7.

A graphics rendering issue on some Mac Pro systems with very large amounts of memory

A graphics rendering issue specific to some non-English languages.

An intermittent problem when using the migration assistant on Mac OS X 10.7.2.

Spurious activation messages when using Boot Camp virtual machines on some systems.

Fresh off the upgrade to the vSphere client for iPad comes an updated View client.  You can head right to the download in iTunes here for the upgrade.  As always, here’s the What’s new from iTunes:

What’s New in version 1.2

• Optimized for VMware View 5 with improved performance
• Support for iOS 5 including Airplay
• Presentation Mode for use with external display and Airplay
• Embedded RSA soft token simplifies login to desktop
• Background tasking to move between Windows and iOS apps
• Updated look and feel
• Integrated online help
• Buffered text input for multibyte text entry
• Now in French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese
• Bug fixes

Some nice new items in this one.  If you like, you can proceed straight to the download here.  Here’s the what’s new section from the release notes:

VMware View 4.6 includes the following new features:

• Security servers can now accommodate PCoIP connections – Security servers now include a PCoIP Secure Gateway component. The PCoIP Secure Gateway connection offers the following advantages:
  • The only remote desktop traffic that can enter the corporate data center is traffic on behalf of a strongly authenticated user.
  • Users can access only the desktop resources that they are authorized to access.
  • No VPN is required, as long as PCoIP is not blocked by any networking component.
  • Security servers with PCoIP support run on Windows Server 2008 R2 and take full advantage of the 64-bit architecture.
• Enhanced USB device compatibility - View 4.6 supports USB redirection for syncing and managing iPhones and iPads with View desktops. This release also includes improvements for using USB scanners, and adds to the list of USB printers that you can use with thin clients. For more information, see the list of View Client resolved issues.
• Keyboard mapping improvements - Many keyboard-related issues have been fixed. For more information, see the list of View Client resolved issues.
• New timeout setting for SSO users - With the single-sign-on (SSO) feature, after users authenticate to View Connection Server, they are automatically logged in to their View desktop operating systems. This new timeout setting allows administrators to limit the number of minutes that the SSO feature is valid for.

  For example, if an administrator sets the time limit to 10 minutes, then 10 minutes after the user authenticates to View Connection Server, the automatic login ability expires. If the user then walks away from the desktop and it becomes inactive, when the user returns, the user is prompted for login credentials. For more information, see the VMware View Administration documentation.

• VMware View 4.6 includes more than 160 bug fixes – For descriptions of selected resolved issues, see Resolved Issues.
• Experimental support for Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 RC operating systems