VMware Horizon View Maintenance releases/updates
By now, most of my clients are running at least version 6.x of Horizon. Occasionally, I’ll get emails asking if it is time to upgrade or what the new features are of a new release. Most of the time the releases have just been standard maintenance releases. Although they are small point releases, I like to apply the maintenance releases in a pretty timely fashion to the environments since the upgrade paths are clear, tested and usually painless. Keeping the environment up to date makes the major release version upgrades that much easier. That typically saves time and money in the long run.
VMware is great about posting their release notes in the pubs.VMware.com documentation site. A quick Google of the version number + ‘release notes’ will bring you right to the links. I recently looked up the release notes for 6.2.1 and 6.2.2 to see what would be fixed/added from 6.2.
Below are snips from the release notes.
https://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/horizon-6-view/horizon-622-view-release-notes.html
Resolved Issues
The following issues have been resolved in this release:
- Users sometimes experience slow response times in their PCoIP sessions when they are connected through a security server.
- Intermittently, printer mapping fails for a remote application.
https://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/horizon-6-view/horizon-621-view-release-notes.html
What’s New in This Release of Horizon 6.2.1
- VMware Horizon View 6.2.1 is a maintenance release. Some known issues from previous releases are resolved. For more information, see Resolved Issues.
- To improve security, SSLv3 is no longer supported. By default, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 are enabled. TLS 1.0 is enabled for outgoing connections to support vSphere 5.x, but is disabled for incoming connections. If the vSphere version is 6.x, it is recommended that TLS 1.0 be disabled for outgoing connections.
- For PCoIP connections, by default, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 are enabled and TLS 1.0 is disabled. Horizon Client 3.3 and earlier versions use only TLS 1.0 for PCoIP. View Agent versions earlier than 6.2 also use only TLS 1.0. To support Horizon Client 3.3 and earlier versions, as well as View Agent 6.1.x and earlier versions, if you use the PCoIP Secure Gateway, you can enable TLS 1.0 for PCoIP connections by following the instructions in KB 2130798, Configure security protocols for PCoIP for Horizon 6 version 6.2 and later, and Horizon Client 3.5 and later.
- For Blast Secure Gateway and the HTML Access agent, by default, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 are enabled and TLS 1.0 is disabled. You can configure the security protocols and cipher suites for both components. See Configuring Security Protocols and Cipher Suites for Blast Secure Gateway in the View Security document and Configure Security Protocols and Cipher Suites for HTML Access Agent in the Horizon Client and View Agent Security document.
- Linux desktops now support clipboard redirection, single sign-on, and smart card redirection. The Setting Up Horizon 6 for Linux Desktops guide also documents additional bulk-deployment scripts.
Bottom line: its not exciting but definitely try to keep your environments up to date with the latest maintenance releases so you are ready to go with a smooth painless upgrade when a major release is announced.