VMware Horizon View 5.3 available to download

Last week VMware have released the new versions of all Horizon View Clients. You can find the news here.

Today is the time of the VMware Horizon View suite. Some of the new features coming with this release, are support for Windows Server 2008 R2 as desktop OS and support for VSAN. This means no more Microsoft VDA and why not, no more SAN. Remember that as today, VSAN is still in beta.

You can download the new software from MyVMware

What’s New in Horizon View 5.3

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Desktop Operating System Support – Windows Server 2008 R2 (Datacenter edition) is now supported as a desktop operating system. For installation instructions and limitations, see KB 2057605: Using Windows Server 2008 R2 as a desktop operating system in VMware Horizon View.
• Windows 8.1 Desktop Operating System Support – Windows 8.1 is now supported as a desktop operating system.
• VMware Horizon Mirage Support – You can now use VMware Horizon Mirage 4.3 to manage View desktops. See the VMware Horizon Mirage Administrator’s Guide for complete information about this feature.
• VMware Virtual SAN Datastore Support – When you create a desktop pool in View Administrator, you can now select a Virtual SAN datastore to store desktop virtual machines. Because Virtual SAN is in Beta, this feature is being released as a Tech Preview, which means that it is available for you to try, but it is not recommended for production use and no technical support is provided. The space-efficient virtual disk format is not available on Virtual SAN datastores. If you use Virtual SAN datastores to host virtual desktops, you will not be able to reclaim allocated unused space on the virtual machines.View Connection Server Memory Recommendation Messages
• View Connection Server Memory Recommendation Messages – If you install View Connection Server with less than 10GB of memory, VMware Horizon View provides memory recommendations by generating warning messages after the installation is complete.
• vDGA Support – vDGA (virtual Dedicated Graphics Acceleration) is now supported for View desktops. For linked-clone desktops, vDGA settings are preserved after refresh, recompose, and rebalance operations.
• Linked-Clone Desktop Pool Storage Overcommit Feature Enhancements – The linked-clone desktop pool storage overcommit feature includes a new storage overcommit level called Unbounded. When you select Unbounded, View Manager does not limit the number of linked-clone desktops that it creates based on the physical capacity of the datastore. You select the storage overcommit level for a linked-clone desktop pool on the Select Datastores page when you add or edit a linked-clone pool. Select Unbounded only if you are certain that the datastore has enough storage capacity to accommodate all of the desktops and their future growth.
• View Persona Management Supportability Improvements – Supportability improvements include new log messages and profile size and file and folder count tracking. View Persona Management uses the file and folder counts to suggest folders for redirection in the Windows event log and provides statistics for these folders.
• Support to Grant Domain Administrators Access to Redirected Folders in View Persona Management – A new group policy setting, Add the Administrators group to redirected folders, has been added to make redirected folders accessible to domain administrators. For information about the new group policy setting, see KB 2058932: Granting domain administrators access to redirected folders for View Persona Management.
• VMware Horizon View Agent Direct-Connection Plug-in – You can use VMware Horizon View Agent Direct-Connection Plug-in to connect directly to a virtual desktop. This plug-in is an installable extension to View Agent that allows a View client to directly connect to a View desktop without using View Connection Server. For more information, see VMware Horizon View Agent Direct-Connection Plug-in Administration.
• View Composer Array Integration (VCAI) Support – The Tech Preview designation has been removed from VCAI. VCAI appears as an option during pool creation when you select an NFS datastore on an array that supports VAAI (vStorage API for Array Integration) native snapshots. The VCAI feature is now supported with select NAS vendors. For a list of supported NAS vendors, see KB 2061611: View Composer API for Array Integration (VCAI) support in VMware Horizon View.
• Blast Secure Gateway Maximum Connections – The Blast Secure Gateway (BSG) now supports up to 350 connections to Horizon View desktops from clients using HTML Access. This connection limit applies to a BSG on one View Connection Server instance or security server.

The complete release note, are here