The drag and drop feature works differently depending on the Horizon Agent version and how it is configured.

With Horizon Agent 7.9 and later, you can drag and drop files, folders, text, rich text, and images between the client system and remote desktops and published applications. With Horizon Agent 7.7 and 7.8, you can drag and drop only files and folders between the client system and remote desktops and published applications. Earlier Horizon Agent versions do not support drag and drop.

The following data formats are supported.

  • HTML Format
  • Rich Text Format (RTF)
  • CF_BITMAP
  • CF_DIB
  • CF_UNICODETEXT
  • FileGroupDescriptorW
  • FileGroupDescriptor
  • FileContents

Depending on the Horizon Agent version, a Horizon administrator can use certain group policy settings or Smart Policies to configure drag and drop behavior. For complete information about configuring the drag and drop feature, see the Configuring Remote Desktop Features in Horizon document for your VMware Horizon version.

Dragging Text and Images

With Horizon Agent 7.9 and later, you can drag text, images, and other data formats from the client system to an open application in a remote desktop or a published application. For example, you can drag text from a browser on the client system and drop it into the WordPad application in a remote desktop. Depending on how the drag and drop feature is configured, you might also be able to drag text, images, and other data formats from an open application in a remote desktop or a published application to the client system.

A Horizon administrator can configure drag and drop behavior by configuring group policy settings. With Horizon Agent 7.9 and Dynamic Environment Manager 9.8 and later, a Horizon administrator can also use Smart Policies to configure drag and drop behavior, including disabling the entire drag and drop feature. For more information, see the Configuring Remote Desktop Features in Horizon document.

Dragging Files and Folders

With Horizon Agent 7.7 and later, you can drag and drop files and folders between the Windows client system and remote desktops and published applications. You can drag and drop multiple files and folders at the same time. A progress bar shows the status of the drag and drop operation.

If you drag a file or folder between the client system and a remote desktop, the file or folder appears in the file system on the target system. If you drag a file and drop it into an open application, such as Notepad, the text appears in the application. If you drag a file into a new email message, the file becomes an attachment to the email message.

By default, dragging and dropping from the client system to remote desktops and published applications is enabled, and dragging and dropping from remote desktops and published applications to the client system is disabled. A Horizon administrator can control the drag and drop direction by configuring group policy settings.

Dragging and dropping files, folders, and file contents requires that the client drive redirection feature is installed in Horizon Agent. The client drive redirection feature is installed by default. For complete information about configuring the drag and drop feature, including feature requirements, see the Configuring Remote Desktop Features in Horizon document for your VMware Horizon version.

Tips for Using the Drag and Drop Feature

When using the drag and drop feature, follow these tips.

Note: Depending on the Horizon Agent version, some tips might not apply to your environment.
  • You must use the VMware Blast or PCoIP display protocol.
  • If the relative mouse feature is enabled (select Settings > Enable Relative Mouse after you connect to a remote desktop that supports this feature), you can drag and drop only from the client system to a virtual desktop.
  • When a drag and drop operation is in progress, you cannot start a new drag and drop operation until after the first drag and drop operation has finished.
  • You cannot use the drag and drop feature in nested mode.
  • When dragging and dropping, you must use the primary mouse button (by default the left button). Using the secondary mouse button (by default the right button), and pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt plus the primary mouse button, are not supported.
  • You cannot drag and drop between remote desktops.
  • You cannot drag and drop between published applications from different farms.
  • If you drag and drop a file or folder between the client system and a remote desktop, the file or folder appears in the file system on the target system. If you drag a file and drop it into an open application, such as Notepad, the text appears in the application. If you drag a file into a new email message, the file becomes an attachment to the email message.
  • You can drag and drop multiple files and folders at the same time. A progress bar shows the status of the drag and drop operation.
  • By default, dragging and dropping from the client system to remote desktops and published applications is enabled, and dragging and dropping from remote desktops and published applications to the client system is disabled.
  • If you are dragging formatted text, some of the data is text and some of the data is formatting information. If you drag a large amount of formatted text, or text and an image, when you attempt to drop the text and image, you might see some or all the plain text, but no formatting or image. This problem occurs because the three types of data are sometimes stored separately. For example, depending on the type of document, images might be stored as images or as RTF data.
  • If you are dragging both plain text and RTF data, and the total data size is less than the drag and drop size threshold, the formatted text is copied. Because RTF data cannot be truncated, if the total data size is greater than the drag and drop size threshold, the RTF data is discarded and only the plain text (or part of the plain text) is copied.
  • If you are unable to drag all the formatted text and images in one operation, you might need to drag smaller amounts in each operation.
  • When you drag a file from the client system and drop it into a published application, you cannot click Save as to copy the file back to a different file on the client system. You can click Save to copy the file back to the same file on the client system.
  • If you drag a file from the client system to an application in a remote desktop, the file is copied to the remote desktop and you can only edit the copy of the file.
  • In a 64-bit Windows machine, if you are unable to drag from Horizon Client to a local 64-bit application, try using the 32-bit version of the local application.
  • If the target local application fails to accept the dragged object, try dragging the object to the local file system and then dragging it to the target local application from local file system.
  • A built-in timeout mechanism exists for fault tolerance.