Blog: VMware View

I ran into another notable gotcha working with VMware View v4. I set up Windows 7 virtual machines in linked clone pools, but I was not able to get dual-monitors to work using PCoIP. After several hours of very frustrating troubleshooting, it turns out that VMware has changed the type of display driver that is included with the VMTools install on Windows 7. Prior to Windows 7, VMware used an SVGA II driver for all Windows guest OSes. With Windows 7, they are now “experimenting” with a new WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) driver. The default VMTools install for Windows 7 uses the WDDM driver instead of the SVGA II driver. Here are some notable limitations of the WDDM driver:

• No support for OpenGL
• No multimonitor support
• VM may be slow to respond or resume
• Overlay video acceleration is disabled (basically this means flash acceleration and MMR is disabled) [more]

I’m thinking this thing isn’t fully cooked…The original article I found on this had me extract the SVGA II adapter from Workstation 7, but it appears as if new versions of the VMTools actually include it at install time, but its just not used. So, here are the instructions to revert to the SVGA II adapter so that stuff actually works!

1. Open Device Manager from Control Panel
2. Expand Display Adapters entry
3. Right click on VMWare SVGA 3D (WDDM) and click properties
4. Click on Uninstall Button
5. Check the “Delete the driver software for this device” option
6. Click OK
7. Your screen may flicker as the driver is removed.  
8. Close Device Manager and reboot Windows 7.
9. Windows will default to the Standard VGA device
10. Open Device Manager, expand Display Adapters
11. Right Click Standard VGA and select Properties
12. Click on Update Driver
13. Click on Browse my Computer 
14. Browse to directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\video
15. Click Next
16. Confirm driver installation
17. Close window and reboot

We are continuing to work through issues with a new VMware View v4 deployment and we had another weird problem come up the other day. I had created a new linked clone desktop pool and View Manager had completed the automatic deployment of several desktops. However, when we would try to connect to the newly created desktops with the View client via PCoIP, we would get a very small (400x600) resolution window as the display instead of the full screen that we had requested. When we requested that PCoIP use multi-monitor display, this small display window would show up in the middle spanned across both monitors in the same small window. Right off I remembered one of a coworker's former gotchas about adjusting the resolution via the .vmx file and that seemed to fix it…however, it kept happening every time a new VM was created by the linked clone pool. I finally found after a VM is created, it must be restarted via the View Manager using the VM reset feature in order for the display settings in the VM to display correctly in PCoIP. Here is another article regarding this issue -> http://www.thatsmyview.net/2009/12/18/how-to-get-pcoip-with-view-4-to-work-every-time/

I have been working on a proof of concept install of VMware View v4 at a customer location. One of the challenges that we ran up against was trying to get the USB redirection to work with HP USB printers. Technically, all that is necessary is to have the printer plugged in USB and have a driver loaded on the virtual machine that you are connecting to using the VMware View client. However, in practice what we found...

HP printers are usually installed using a DOT4 USB port driver. DOT4 port types have been around a while and basically provide a bi-direction information flow between multiple devices on a single physical channel. Its most commonly seen for devices that support multiple functionality like scanning and printing, but can be used for any USB connected printer. There is an option to NOT use the DOT4 port types and in our situation it was essential because….well, the VMware View USB redirection just simply didn’t work with the DOT4 ports. The problem is that once the printer was installed it was IMPOSSIBLE to change the port type from DOT4 to USB…the printer would stop working. After about 2 days of struggling with this and not being able to remove the DOT4 port type, I finally found that the port type could be altered after the printer was installed. Heres how: [more]

1. Open device manager on the PC and change the view to by connection and show hidden devices
   
2. Search through the USB host controllers and USB Root Hubs until you find the hub with the printer installed…It will look like the following:
   
3. Next, right-click on the USB Printing Support and select properties.
4. Select the drivers tab and select upgrade driver
5. Choose to “Install from a specific location” and then choose “Don’t search. I will choose the driver”
6. Then you will be give the option to choose the driver used for the USB printer support. Choose USB Printer support.
7. Click Next and it will install new drivers and change the port type of the printer from DOT4 to USB

It is yet to be tested if this USB printer support method works with multifunction printers, but the change worked on every LaserJet USB printer that we set up. Obviously, if you have a choice, just set up all the printers as network printers and avoid the problem altogether.