The URL Content Redirection template file contains group policy settings that enable you to create rules for configuring the agent-to-client redirection capability for your Horizon Cloud environment. The template file contains only Computer Configuration settings. All of the settings are in the VMware Horizon URL Redirection folder in the Group Policy Management Editor.

Important: Even though the URL Content Redirection template file contains group policy settings related to client-to-agent redirection, you do not use group policy settings to configure client-to-agent redirection. Instead, you use the Administration Console to create the rules for client-to-agent redirection. You create rules for client-to-agent redirection when you create a URL redirection assignment in the Administration Console. For detailed steps, see Create a URL Redirection Customization and Assign it to Users.

The following table describes the group policy settings available in the URL Content Redirection template file.

Table 1. URL Content Redirection Group Policy Settings
Setting Properties
IE Policy: Prevent users from changing URL Redirection plugin loading behavior Determines whether users can disable the URL Content Redirection feature.

This setting is not configured by default.

IE Policy: Automatically enable URL Redirection plugin Determines whether newly installed Internet Explorer plug-ins are automatically activated.

This setting is not configured by default.

Url Redirection Enabled Determines whether the URL Content Redirection feature is enabled. You can use this setting to disable the URL Content Redirection feature even if the feature has been installed in the client or agent.

This setting is not configured by default.

Url Redirection Protocol 'http' For all URLs that use the HTTP protocol, specifies the URLs that should be redirected. This setting has the following options:
  • Broker Hostname - IP address or fully qualified name of the Connection Server host to use when redirecting URLs to a remote desktop or application.
  • Remote Item - display name of the remote desktop or application pool that can handle the URLs specified in Agent Rules.
  • Client Rules - the URLs that should be redirected to the client. For example, if you set Client Rules to .*.mycompany.com, all URLs that include the text mycompany.com are redirected to the Windows-based client and are opened in the default browser on the client.
  • Agent Rules - the URLs that should be redirected to the remote desktop or application specified in Remote Item. For example, if you set Agent Rules to .*.mycompany.com, all URLs that include mycompany.com are redirected to the remote desktop or application.

When you create agent rules, you must also use the Broker Hostname option to specify the IP address or fully qualified domain name of the Connection Server host, and the Remote Item option to specify the display name of the desktop or application pool.

Note: The preferred method for configuring client rules is to use the vdmutil command-line utility.

This setting is enabled by default.

Url Redirection Protocol '[...]' Use this setting for any protocol other than HTTP, such as HTTPS, email, or callto.

The options are the same as for Url Redirection Protocol 'http'.

If you do not need to configure other protocols, you can delete or comment out this entry before adding the URL Content Redirection template file to Active Directory.

As a best practice, configure the same redirection settings for the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. That way, if a user types a partial URL into Internet Explorer, such as mycompany.com, and that site automatically redirects from HTTP to HTTPS, the URL Content Redirection feature will work as expected. In this example, if you set a rule for HTTPS but do not set the same redirection setting for HTTP, the partial URL that the user types is not redirected.

This setting is not configured by default.