Deploying VDI for RDS 2012 / 2012R2 – Part III – Updating a Pooled Desktop Image
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on April 19, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
Part III
In part II we saw how to deploy and publish a Windows 7 pooled virtual desktop. Now let’s take a look at the steps needed in making a change or update to our image and making it available to users. To recap our environment, we have a Windows 7 pooled desktop collection available to our users. This was created from our master virtual machine called Win7master. Part of the process needed when we created our collection was to run sysprep on our master image. As a good practice measure, I created a checkpoint of the virtual machine prior to running sysprep. This was done so I can easily revert the virtual machine back to a normal state prior to when I ran sys-prep. Read the rest of this entry »
Deploying VDI for RDS 2012 / 2012R2 – Part II – Publishing a Windows 7 Pooled Desktop
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on April 14, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
Part II
Now with our RD Virtualization Host deployed as per Part I of deploying VDI for RDS 2012, we are ready to publish a Windows 7 pooled VDI desktop. This section will cover the deployment of a pooled desktop and the options available when deploying the desktop. The first thing we will need is a Windows 7 virtual machine. I’ve pre-created this machine along with some applications installed on the image. Once you are done installing applications and configuring the Windows 7 image, we will need to prepare the image for deployment. In order to do this, we will need to run sysprep with the following options. Read the rest of this entry »
Deploying VDI for RDS 2012 / 2012R2 – Part I
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on March 26, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
In previous articles, we looked at the deployment steps of a traditional form of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) for 2012 and 2012 R2. Now let’s take a look at the setup of VDI for a 2012 RDS farm. This will be broken down into three parts. In this first part, we will go through the process of deploying the RD Virtualization Host role to a single Hyper-V server in an existing 2012 RDS farm. Then in the second part, we will go through the process of creating a desktop collection and publishing a Windows 7 pooled VDI desktop. Finally in part three, we will go through the process of maintaining a desktop image for a pooled desktop. This portion will cover the maintenance and updating of the main image in a pooled VDI desktop environment.
Deploying the RD Gateway Service Role in a 2012 / 2012 R2 RDS Farm
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on February 13, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
For any RDS farm, there is a very good chance users will be accessing the farm from a remote location outside of the corporate network. When doing so, it is critical to secure their connection, especially when corporate data is being accessed. In order to secure a user’s connection into a RDS farm, a RD Gateway server will be required. The RD Gateway enables authorized remote users to connect to resources in an internal corporate or private network, from any Internet-connected device that can run the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client. The network resources can be RD Session Host servers, RD Session Host servers running RemoteApp programs, or computers with Remote Desktop enabled.
The following will cover the steps needed in deploying a RD Gateway Server into a 2012 / 2012R2 RDS farm. Before deploying the RD Gateway Server, the RDS farm should already be built and configured. Please check out the following for more information on deploying a 2012 / 2012R2 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) farm. Read the rest of this entry »
Collections – Publishing RemoteApp programs and Session Desktops on RDS 2012 / 2012 R2
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on February 10, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
In a previous article, we went through the steps of deploying a 2012 / 2012R2 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) farm. Now with the farm built, let’s take a look at the changes and the process of publishing RemoteApp programs and session-based desktops in Server 2012 / 2012 R2.
Let’s open Server Manager and look at our farm. On the left column you will see a new node called Collections. Collections give you the ability to group a set of RD Session Host servers with a common set of applications and publish them to users. These can be RemoteApp programs or Session Host and VDI desktops. So think of collections as something similar to an application silo. For instance, let’s say we had a group of 5 RD session host servers which all have Office 2013 installed and are configured the same way. If we wanted to publish the Office applications across the 5 RD session host servers, we would first create a collection that included all 5 servers and publish the Office apps accordingly. This is the same if you wanted to provide users with a session host desktop. You would simply create a new collection, add the servers which will be providing the session desktop and publish them to the proper user group(s). One thing to note is you cannot publish a desktop to an existing collection which has already been configured for RemoteApps. The published desktop will require its own collection. Read the rest of this entry »
Deploying a 2012 / 2012R2 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) farm
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on February 8, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
A lot of people were pretty excited when Microsoft released RDS for 2012 and for good reason. Not only did they overcome the shortcomings of the previous release of RDS on Windows 2008 R2, they have also made it very easy to setup and configure. One of the many great features of 2012 and 2012 R2 is the ability to push roles and features to multiple servers in an environment from a single Server Manager console. Not only does this save time when rolling out a new RDS environment, it also makes it easy.
The following will cover the step by step process in deploying the base components of a RDS 2012 /2012 R2 farm. Before we begin the process, let’s look at the different roles we will be deploying. Read the rest of this entry »Configuring the RD Gateway Server for a 2012 RDS farm with HA enabled for the RD Connection Brokers
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on February 2, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
In a previous article, we demonstrated the steps needed to configure HA for the RD Connection Broker servers in an RDS 2012 farm. If you are using an RD Gateway server for a farm where HA is configured for the brokers, there are a few steps you will need to do in order for users to be able to successfully connect through the RD Gateway server(s).
When a user connects through the RD Gateway server, the gateway server will initially connect the user to one of the RD connection broker servers in order for the broker to determine what server or desktop the user will be connecting to. When HA is enabled for the farm, the gateway server will try to connect the user to the brokers using the DNS Round Robin name when HA was configured for the farm. By default, the DNS name used is not on the gateway’s allowable resource list for users to connect to. So for any user trying to connect to the farm through the RD Gateway, their access will be denied. To get around this, we will simply need to add a new resource authorization policy which will users to access resources through the gateway server using the designated DNS round robin name. Read the rest of this entry »
Configuring HA for the Remote Desktop Connection Broker in a 2012 RDS Farm
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in MICROSOFT on February 2, 2014
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
One of the biggest issues with Remote Desktop Services on Windows 2008 R2 was the limitation of only having a single active RD Connection Broker server per RDS farm. Yes, you still could have multiple broker servers, however they would run in an Active/Passive mode. This was a major problem since it would limit the size of the farm. The more servers, resources, and users added to the farm put a strain on the single active RD broker server. In most cases, you would have to create multiple RDS farms to get around this problem. This has changed with RDS for 2012. You can now have multiple active brokers in a single RDS farm.
As per Microsoft, the RD Connection Broker provides the following functionality: Read the rest of this entry »
Mapped Drives are not being personalized for random users with AppSense Environment Manager
Posted by Eddie Kwasnik in CITRIX, MICROSOFT, VMWARE on January 28, 2014
Product: AppSense Environment Manager 8.x
** NOTE: For AppSense Environment Manager Version 8.0, the following is in the user’s desktop settings within personalization. For any newer version it will be in the user’s Session Data within personalization.
Scenario:
A user logs into their desktop and they report they cannot see their mapped drives. If the user creates a new mapped drive within their session, logs off and back into their desktop, the mapped drive is no longer there. This only occurs for random users. Upon further investigation, when looking at the user’s session data in personalization analysis, the mapped drives are being personalized. This is found under the registry key HKCU\Network. In fact, even the newly mapped drive shows up here as well. Read the rest of this entry »
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