Horizon Client for Windows 2012 | 07 January 2021

These release notes cover the following topics:

Key Features

VMware Horizon Client for Windows makes it easy to access your remote desktops and published applications with the best possible user experience on the Local Area Network (LAN) or across a Wide Area Network (WAN).

  • Support for Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019
  • Unmatched performance - The adaptive capabilities of the PCoIP display protocol and the VMware Blast display protocol are optimized to deliver the best user experience, even over low-bandwidth and high-latency connections. Your remote desktops and published applications are fast and responsive, regardless of where you are.
  • Simple connectivity - Horizon Client for Windows is tightly integrated with VMware Horizon for simple setup and connectivity.
  • Secure from any location - At your desk or away from the office, your data is delivered securely to you wherever you are. SSL/TLS encryption is always used to protect user credentials, and enhanced certificate checking is performed on the client device. Horizon Client supports optional RADIUS and RSA SecurID authentication. You can also install Horizon Client so that it runs in FIPS mode.

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What's New in This Release

Horizon Client for Windows 2012 includes the following new features:

  • Using encrypted USB thumb drives with the client drive redirection feature
    See Share Local Folders and Drives.
  • Generating log files for remote desktop features
    You can set log levels and generate log files in a Data Collection Tool (DCT) bundle for remote desktop features. See Collecting Logs for Remote Desktop Features and Components.
  • Customizing the USB forwarding list
    You can use the Exclude Automatically Connection Device Family and Exclude Automatically Connection Vid/Pid Device client or agent group policy settings to filter the USB devices that are forwarded automatically. For the client group policy settings, see USB Settings for GPOs. For the agent group policy settings, see USB Settings in the Horizon Agent Configuration ADMX Template. This feature requires Horizon Agent 2012.
  • Copying and pasting files and folders
    You can copy and paste files and folders between the client system and remote desktops and published applications. See Copying and Pasting Files and Folders.
  • Client drive redirection dependency changes
    The drag and drop, file association, and file copy and paste features are no longer dependent on the client drive redirection feature being enabled.
  • DPI synchronization enhancements
    The client's per-monitor DPI setting is synchronized to the agent and changes take effect immediately during a remote session by default. This feature is controlled by the DPI Synchronization Per Monitor agent group policy setting. This feature requires Horizon Agent 2012. Horizon Client for Windows 2012 does not support the DPI Synchronization Per Connection feature in earlier Horizon Agent releases. See Using DPI Synchronization.
  • Customizing the Horizon Client for Windows online update feature
    You can use the Allow user to skip Horizon Client update, Automatically check for updates, and Update message pop-up group policy settings to customize the Horizon Client for Windows online update feature. See General Settings for Client GPOs.
  • Setting a preferred speaker
    If you have multiple speakers on your client system, you can specify which speaker is preferred in a remote desktop. This feature requires Horizon Agent 2012. See Select a Preferred Speaker for a Remote Desktop.
  • Windows 10 2009 support
    You can install Horizon Client for Windows on a Windows 10 2009 client system.

Internationalization

The user interface and documentation for Horizon Client are available in English, Japanese, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Spanish.

Before You Begin

Resolved Issues

The number provided before each resolved issue refers to the VMware internal issues tracking system.

  • 2572160: When using Horizon Client with Media Teams Optimization enabled, if the client wakes from hibernation during a Teams call, the Teams call continues, but sometimes self preview video in the remote desktop, and the remote peer's incoming video, freezes.

Known Issues

  • The serial port redirection group policy setting Bandwidth Limit does not set a limit on the bandwidth.

    Workaround: Use third-party software to limit the bandwidth.

  • With serial port redirection, at a high baud rate such as 115200, the performance of VMware Blast is significantly worse than PCoIP, and the connection might sometimes hang.

    Workaround: Use a baud rate of 9600.

  • In an IPv6 environment, if you configure IP address mapping for location-based printing, users might encounter a problem accessing the printer because the client can have multiple IPv6 addresses. Anytime the client connects, it can use any one of the addresses.

    Workaround: Use the location-based printing group policy setting IP Range to include the multiple addresses. However, the printing problem might still occur because the client might use a temporary address, which is not in the specified range.

  • If you use a touch-enabled screen on your client system to work in a remote desktop, do not use the Enable Relative Mouse feature. This feature provides improved mouse performance for 3D and CAD applications, but for touch-enabled screens and tablets, the mouse coordinates are not translated properly, even in 3D and CAD applications.

  • If you have multiple monitors with different screen resolutions and expand Horizon Client to all monitors and then select the Enable Relative Mouse feature, occasionally, the mouse pointer might not be able to move downward beyond a certain position.

    Workaround: Press Ctrl+Alt.

  • When a user connects to a desktop using PCoIP shortly after the desktop is powered on, autofit of the desktop window might not work. This issue happens most often if the desktop or network is under stress shortly after power-on (to start multiple applications or to map network drives, for example).

    Workaround: Double-click the desktop window's title to go into window mode and double-click the title bar to go into all-monitor mode.

  • On Windows 10, Windows Fax and Scan hangs when using a CardScan 800 device.

    Workaround: None.

  • If LockedGuestSize is set to 640x480 on the client machine and you launch a remote desktop in Window - Small mode, the resolution helper tooltip does not appear when you drag the window edge.

    Workaround: None

  • If you install Horizon Agent and then install Horizon Client on the same Windows machine (a nested mode installation), and you later uninstall Horizon Agent, the client's "log in as current user" function is lost after Horizon Agent is uninstalled. This problem occurs because the wsnotify.dll file is removed after Horizon Agent is uninstalled.

    Workaround: Reinstall Horizon Agent or Horizon Client to bring back the "log in as current user" function.

  • If you connect multiple USB devices to the client system, select Automatically connect at startup in Horizon Client, and then connect, disconnect, and quickly reconnect to a remote desktop, not all of the USB devices are redirected to the remote desktop after you reconnect.

    Workaround: Wait for the USB devices to be redirected back to the client machine (for example, wait for the devices to appear in the device manager) and then reconnect to the remote deskop. Alternatively, you can manually redirect any unredirected USB devices to the remote desktop.

  • After you disconnect and reconnect multiple remote desktops, you see an error message that states that an error occurred when connecting a USB device to your remote desktop. This problem typically occurs when multiple USB devices are connected to the client machine and you select Automatically connect at startup in Horizon Client.

    Workaround: Close the error message box and manually redirect the USB devices to the remote desktop.

  • If you use the RDP protocol to connect to a published desktop from a physical machine, and then you try to connect to the same published desktop from a zero client, the RDP session ends on the physical machine and the zero client cannot connect.

    Workaround: Relaunch the same desktop pool with RDP from the physical machine, select Options > Disconnect and logoff in the launched RDP session, and then reconnect to the same desktop pool from the zero client.

  • A “Pending session expired” error might occur when you try to connect to a remote desktop with the Microsoft RDP display protocol. This problem only occurs in large-scale environments where a Unified Access Gateway appliance is used and virtual printing is enabled.

    Workaround: Establish a connection to the remote desktop without using a Unified Access Gateway appliance, or disable virtual printing and establish a connection using RDP.

  • With the clipboard audit feature, the event log reports one byte more than the actual length of the data that was copied from the agent machine to the client machine. For example, if you copy 10 bytes of data from a remote desktop to the client machine, the event log reports "XXX copy 11 bytes CPFORMAT_TEXT data from Horizon Agent to Horizon Client XXX with clipboard." Also, if "\r\n" is in the copied text, the event log records only the length of "\r." For example, if you copy the following text, the audit message records the length as 12 bytes:
    "aaa
    bbb
    ccc"

    Workaround: None.

  • With the Browser Redirection feature, the context menu options on right click are limited to open link in new tab, open link in new window, back, and forward.

    Workaround: None.

  • If you select Connect USB Device > Automatically Connect at Startup for a camera, Horizon Client stops responding when you start the remote desktop.

    Workaround: None.

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