I’m excited to announce the latest release of VMware Horizon 7 version 7.8 and Client Agent Release Train (CART) 5.0. You can see the highlights of this release in the What’s New video below. This includes new features and enhancements to the Connection Server, Horizon Agent, Horizon Client, GPO Bundle, Horizon 7 Cloud Connector, VMware Cloud on AWS, and more. In addition, new releases of VMware User Environment Manager 9.7.0 and VMware App Volumes 2.16 are also now available.
What’s New Video
You can see the highlights of this release in the VMware Horizon 7.8 and Client 5.0 What’s New video.
What’s New in VMware Horizon 7 version 7.8
The 7.8 release of VMware Horizon 7 includes new features and enhancements to the Connection Server, the Horizon Agent, Horizon Client, GPO Bundle, Horizon 7 Cloud Connector, VMware Cloud on AWS, and more.
Platform Updates
Additional support for Windows Server 2019 is now available for both the Connection Server and View Composer, as well as for Skype for Business 2019.
Administration Consoles
Horizon Console, the new HTML5-based web interface, is quickly catching up to the earlier Flash-based Horizon Administrator. With the Horizon Console, you can now enjoy support for:
- Persistent disk management
- Global policy management
- Role-based access control and management
- Connection Server and vCenter settings management
- Linked clone farm creation and management
- Cloud Pod Architecture settings access
- Shortcut creation for RDSH applications and desktops
Scaling
The Cloud Pod Architecture has been extended to the following topology limits:
- 250,000 total sessions
- 50 pods
- 10,000 sessions per pod
- 15 sites
- 7 Connection Server instances per pod
- 350 total Connection Server instances
RDSH Published Applications and Desktops
For published desktops and applications on RDS hosts, you can now:
- Set thresholds for CPU, memory, and disk usage
- Use CPU, memory, and load throttle to define the load balancing policy.
- Apply more flexible client restrictions that support Organizational Units (OU).
Horizon 7 with VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services
VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS) is enhanced as well. You can include both vSphere and Horizon 7 in the cloud. You can use Horizon 7 with VMware Cloud on AWS on multiple networks segments, which allows smaller scopes.
For more information, see the VMware Knowledge Base article 58539.
Horizon Agents
Horizon Agents for Windows and Linux have been enhanced in the following ways:
Horizon Agent for Windows
The Horizon Agent for Windows now provides greater flexibility by:
- Use of regular expressions when you create URL Content Redirection rules
- Smart card authentication with UWP apps, such as Microsoft Edge, in remote desktops
- Helpdesk plugin included in the Horizon Agent Installer
- VMware Integrated Printing offers a finishing option (such as staple or booklet) for specific redirected printers
Horizon Agent for Linux
The Horizon Agent for Linux now supports the following enhancements:
- Desktops running the RHEL 7.6 or CentOS 7.6 distributions
- The multi-monitor feature for VMware Horizon HTML Access version 5.0 clients
- Smart card redirection on Linux desktops running RHEL 7.1 or later, which allows client users to authenticate into a Linux desktop using a smart card reader connected to the client system.
- True Single Sign-on (SSO) on Linux desktops running Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04, SLED 12.x SP3, or SLES 12.x SP3.
Horizon Clients
Horizon Clients have a new look and feel in alignment with VMware Workspace ONE. In addition, Horizon Client 5.0 is enhanced to include HTML Access 5.0.
For more information, see the release notes on the Horizon Clients Documentation page.
- Domain Security – Domain security has been strengthened by requiring users to enter a domain in the User name field, such as domain/username, or username@domain.com when they log in to a Horizon 7.8 Connection Server.
- Windows Client – You can now enjoy enhanced multiple monitor support for up to six monitors for displaying remote desktops and published applications.
- Mac Client – You now have support for setting Mac Clients into dark mode.
- iOS Client – In Presentation Mode, the iOS Client now supports screen rotation. You can also now use the built-in camera redirection with Real-Time Audio Video (RTAV).
Horizon GPO Bundle
The Horizon GPO Bundle now includes policy settings that allow you to:
- Configure IP address and IP address range filtering for the URL Content Redirection feature
- Configure drive letter behavior and specify how long to wait for Windows Explorer to initialize and display drive letters for redirected drives
- Pass input control to collaborators
- Specify a filter to redirect a client printer and set print preview options
Horizon 7 Cloud Connector
In the 7.8 release, you can now set a password expiry policy for the root user for the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance.
For a more complete list of what’s new, see the Release Notes for VMware Horizon 7 version 7.8.
What’s New in VMware User Environment Manager 9.7.0
The VMware User Environment Manager, another Horizon-related product, has also just launched the 9.7.0 release.
This release includes updates to the main components VMware UEM FlexEngine and VMware UEM Management Console, as well as the User Environment Manager SyncTool. The updated SyncTool now supports application blocking and privilege elevation on endpoints that use the SyncTool. When Application Blocking and Privilege Elevation were introduced, they didn’t work with the SyncTool, which is primarily used for physical PC use cases.
Note: The Application Profiler and the Helpdesk Support Tool are not updated for the 9.7 release. If you are upgrading from version 9.6, upgrade all the product components except the Application Profiler and the Helpdesk Support Tool. If you are upgrading from version 9.5 or earlier, upgrade all product components.
For more information, see the product page: VMware User Environment Manager. You can also check out the release notes: VMware User Environment Manager Release Notes.
What’s New in VMware App Volumes 2.16
VMware App Volumes, another Horizon-related product, has also just launched a new release, which consists mainly of security fixes and enhancements. This includes the new App Volumes Manager Secure Registration, which existing users upgrading to App Volumes 2.16 are encouraged to activate. Updates to writable volume templates also improve Windows 10 and Outlook compatibility.
To find out more, see VMware App Volumes 2.16 Release Notes.
What’s New in VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.5
VMware Unified Access Gateway, another Horizon-related product, has also just launched the 3.5 release.
New Unified Access Gateway features and enhancements are available for all Workspace ONE and Horizon editions. These include support for Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS cloud deployments, statistics API for monitoring, support for PCoIP Secure Gateway (PSG) SSL certificate replacement, external load balancer monitoring covering all edge services, and more.
For more information, see Release Notes for VMware Unified Access Gateway 3.5.
Subject Matter Experts
The following people contributed directly or indirectly to the creation of this blog post:
- Hilko Lantinga, Senior Technical Marketing Architect for VMware EUC Mobile Marketing and Horizon 7 subject matter expert
- Josh Spencer, Senior Technical Marketing Architect for VMware EUC Mobile Marketing, App Volumes and User Environment Manager subject matter expert
- Andreano Lanusse, Staff Architect for VMware EUC Mobile Marketing, subject matter expert
- Chris Halstead, Staff Architect for VMware EUC Mobile Marketing and Horizon 7 subject matter expert
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