When entitling a Horizon FLEX image, you can create a virtual machine name pattern so that when virtual machines are created for the same user entitlement, Horizon FLEX creates unique virtual machine names.

The virtual machine name pattern must include the { username} or { n} parameters. The { n} parameter enables the creation of a running number pattern to add incremental numbers to virtual machine names. These patterns are valid:
  • VM-{username}
  • VM-{n}
The machine name is limited to 15 characters. If a machine name is longer than 15 characters, only the first 15 characters are used. For example, if the pattern is VM-1234567890- username and the user name is Jack, the machine name is trimmed to VM-123456789-J. These patterns are not valid, in some cases because the machine name might be too long:
  • VM-(username}-{username}
  • VM-{username}-{n}
  • VM-{n}-{n}

To ensure that each virtual machine receives a different name and can join the domain, it must include the {username} or {n} placeholders. The {username} placeholder is replaced by the individual user's name when the user downloads the virtual machine. For {n}, the Active Directory is searched for computers with names that match the pattern. If no names match the pattern, the running number value is 1. Otherwise, the value for the next running number is the successor number of the maximum number between all names that match the pattern.

For example, one virtual machine might be entitled to user1 and the machine name pattern might be set as VM-username- n. When user1 downloads the virtual machine, Active Directory is searched to determine whether a machine name matches the name pattern, such as VM-user1-x, where x is the assigned number. If the maximum mapping number is 25, where the virtual machine name is VM-user1-25, this machine name is set as VM-user1-26. If no virtual machine matches the pattern, Horizon FLEX sets the machine as VM-user1-1.

You can entitle more than one virtual machine to the same user. For example, you can entitle three virtual machines to user1. When user1 downloads the virtual machines, the virtual machine name is changed to vm-x-user1. The assigned virtual machine number is not incremented for each user name but is based on when the virtual machine was registered.

For example, user1 might have three virtual machine names vm-10-user1, vm-26-user1 and vm-39-user1, depending on which other virtual machines were entitled to other users and when user1 downloaded each virtual machine. The incremented number is used only for tracking by the Horizon FLEX administrator. The client user does not see the incremented number.