Virtually Jason

One of my customers has been having an intermittent issue with their Windows 7 VDI Desktops.  Occasionally after they update the Operating System, when the desktops boot back up they fail to use their NICs.  The NIC is still attached to the VM and is still on the right network, but Windows fails to recognize it (it doesn’t get a DHCP address and, in fact, registers within the OS as being physically disconnected from the network).  Restarting the desktop doesn’t help, reinstalling drivers doesn’t help (we’re using the VMXNET3 network adapter, for those who are interested).  Removing the adapter from Windows seems to be the key to getting the desktop back online.  We’ve gotten desktops back online by removing the adapter from Device Manager and then scanning for hardware changes (and rebooting).  We’ve also removed the NIC from the VM (with the VM shut down) and replaced it; that’s also alleviated the issue. Unfortunately, those steps just alleviate the...

Andre Leibovici has posted an interesting article at myvirtualcloud.net about direct PCoIP connections to VDI Desktops .  Apparently, VMware is testing this ability right now and is considering making it generally available; I find this fascinating! Andre points out a couple of use cases that seem largely focused on the small business space.  The use case that I’m most interested in is the “Cloud Provisioning” option that he mentions.  I’m interested in that because, near as I can tell, “Cloud Provisioning” really just means “desktops that are not provisioned or managed by View”.  That is exciting because it might open the doors for deeper 3 rd party integration or whole 3 rd party connection brokering for PCoIP (like the late Panologic did with RDP sessions). My favorite aspect of Panologic’s solution was how seamless it was, from the user perspective.  Since the VDI desktop could be associated with the Pano device, the RDP session was established a...