VMware Horizon – Upgrade Client repository with Horizon 2206 Clients

Release date: September 5th 2022

Welcome to my VMware Horizon series. Upgrading the Horizon Client is the first step in upgrading a Horizon environment, as shown below. As the Horizon Client is distributed in all kinds of different ways to users, GPO, application deployments, scripts, I won’t go into this now.

In a production environment, it is advisable to have the users upgrade their clients first. A smart approach to doing this, is to alert the users of this by using Client Restrictions. The newer Horizon Client editions are backward compatible and it is preferable to have as many as possible upgraded before upgrading the rest of the Horizon components. This can bee done by editing the Client Restrictions under Global Settings in Horizon Administrator GUI.

In my setup, I will block clients older than 8.5.0 and send warning to users on this version.

In my lab, I use the Horizon Portal to distribute clients. After having done an upgrade of the Connection Server, I will have to recreate the repository. In this session, I will recreate the local repository for VMware Horizon Client installations. This is especially handy if connection servers is located in isolated VLAN’s. I will perform the following tasks in order to create a local client repository.

• Download the newest VMware Horizon Clients from VMware here: https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/downloads/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_horizon_clients/horizon_8
• Create a folder named “downloads” in “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\broker\webapps” on the connection server
• Copy the downloaded client to “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\broker\webapps\downloads”
• Backup the “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\portal\portal-links-html-access.properties” file
• Edit the “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\portal\portal-links-html-access.properties” file with new paths to client installation
• Restart the connection server

In the VMware Horizon portal, the users can click “Install VMware Horizon Client”, which will normally redirect the users to VMware’s client download page. This is the functionality I’m going to change in this session.

I log into the connection server and create new folder named downloads under “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\broker\webapps”

Next, I copy the downloaded Horizon Clients v. 2106-8.3.0 to the new “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\broker\webapps\downloads” folder.

I backup “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\portalportal-links-html-access.properties” before I open Notepad as Administrator and edit the portal-links-html-access.properties file.

Back in Notepad, I modify the link paths to match my downloads location.

Finally, I restart the connection server in order to apply my changes from this session.

VMware Horizon – Upgrades

VMware Horizon planning, deployment etc.

Official VMware Horizon 8 Documentation

Disclaimer: Every tips/tricks/posting I have published here, is tried and tested in different it-solutions. It is not guaranteed to work everywhere, but is meant as a tip for other users out there. Remember, Google is your friend and don’t be afraid to steal with pride! Feel free to comment below as needed.