VMware Horizon 2006 (8) client not supported on Windows 10 build 1809
Is this statement true? Kind of.. But not for many enterprises. When I first read about this, I got nervous since many of my clients were running Windows 10 LTS version 1809. And that’s the key, most of them are running the Long Term Service channel and not the Short Term Service channel (or the SAC -Semi Annual Channel) that this statement talks about.
Windows LTS vs SAC
There is a very distinct difference between the Long Term and Semi-Annual channels of Windows and if you don’t choose wisely, you will be forced to upgrade when new releases come out and support is dropped.
The current LATEST version of the LTS branch is Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTS. Prior versions include the 2016 and 2015 branches as well. Contrast this to the semi-annual branches whose latest version is Windows 10 2004 (released the 4th month of 2020) and is the 4th release since Windows 1809 (the 9th month of 2018). [1809, 1903, 1909, 2004)
Enterprise organizations choose the LTS branch for the extended support and less frequent release cycles (not to mention not having to deal with UWP apps!), though we do see this rapidly changing since Microsoft no longer allows Office 365 to be installed on LTS builds. You will still get security patches but the internal build version of the Operating System will stay the same and remain in support.
Horizon 2006 Support
So this brings us back to the question of whether or not Windows 10 Build 1809 is a supported operating system for the new Horizon 2006 client. If you are running the LTS version, then yes. If not, then you need to upgrade to at least Win10 1903 for support.
You can also see that even the 2016 LTSC version is supported which has a build version of 1607.
Which one do I have?
If you are unsure which OS version you are running, there two easy methods to find out quickly. The old winver command:
The other way is System Information. The OS Name line will show whether you are running Long Term or not.
Hopefully that clears up any of the confusion.
What’s new with VMware Horizon 8 (Or 2006 as it prefers to be called)
Is it VMware Horizon 8 or Horizon 2006? Confusing times call for confusing naming standards. Horizon 2006 is the next version of VMware’s End-User Computing platform. In my opinion, this could also have been called Horizon 7.5 but VMware instead chose to start using the Microsoft practice of using the year (20) and the release […]
Happy VDI’ing!
– Carlo