Release date: October 4th 2023
Welcome to my VMware Horizon series. In this session I will describe how I upgrade the VMware Horizon Recording Agent in my template to v. 1.8.0. According to VMware’s official documentation, this should be done as step 11 in the supported update sequence.
I start out by downloading the installation media from VMware Customer Connect
Before I show how to do the unattended upgrade with MDT, I’m going to show how to do a manual upgrade, as there are some information here that we need in the automatic upgrade. As usual, when I launch the executable the welcome screen opens, Next…
I agree to the license terms, Next…
The default Destination Folder looks good, Next…
The following page is important, here we are providing the connection details and register the machine as a template with the Recording server. As described by VMware in the documentation: Using VMware Horizon Recording, I will need to provide the following:
- Server Address: FQDN (or) IP of Recording server (or) Load balancer. Note: Starts with
https://and ends with port number 9443.
- User name: Admin username of recording server. I will be using the default Admin user name as described in the documentation
- Password: Password of the Admin username.
I provide the information, check “This machine is a template”, Register…
When the connection is made the wizard prompts me if I trust the Recording Server certificate thumbprint. This is the SHA1 thumbprint of the certificate as is important because this is used in the unattended installation as well. Yes…
Install…
Finish…
As I’ve gone over to using MDT to create Horizon templates, described here: Automating Template Creation & Maintenance, I will update the Horizon Recording Agent in the Deployment Share, and run through the task sequence, to create a new template. Before I begin, I open the task sequence and can see that it has found the 1.7.8 Agent in the Deployment Share.
As the Horizon Recording Agent is an application in the Deployment-share, I upgrade this by adding in the new version as a new application. It is important to make sure that the executable isn’t blocked by Windows Security, therefore I right-click the exe-file, select Properties and tick the Unblock box, if it exists.
As I have previously described this here, VMware Horizon – Install and Setup Desktop Recording Server & Agent, I wont go into details but do a quick run through with the screenshots below. I open Deployment Workbench MMC and go through the “New Application Wizard“
In the next step I provide the command line parameters as described in VMware’s documentation here: Using VMware Horizon Recording
Command Line Option Description MACHINEISTEMPLATE True (or) False SERVERADDRESSPROP FQDN (or) IP of Recording server (or) Load balancer. Note: Starts with https://and ends with port number 9443.USER_NAME Admin username of recording server. USER_PASSWORD Password of the Admin username. TRUSTEDTHUMBPRINT Thumbprint of the recording server (no spaces or no colons).
The SHA1 certificate thumbprint I collect from the certificate
Once the application is added in MDT, I change the task sequence accordingly.
Once done, I update the deployment Share, before I run through the task sequence and push the new template to my desktop pool.
Having finished the Recording Agent upgrade, I can now proceed with upgrading the Horizon Group Policy templates, covered here: VMware Horizon – Upgrade Horizon GPO Bundle to v. 2306
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.
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