On 14th March, 2019, VMware released their latest offering of their virtual desktop solution, Horizon 7 version 7.8.
The updates in this release are shown below:
Horizon Connection Server
Horizon Console (HTML5-based Web Interface)
Use Horizon Console to initialise the Cloud Pod Architecture feature, join pods to the pod federation, and create and manage global entitlements, sites, and home sites.
Use Horizon Console to recreate and restore linked clones with persistent disks.
In Horizon Console, the Cancel task option is available for linked-clone operations.
Use Horizon Console to create automated linked-clone farms.
Use Horizon Console to configure Horizon Connection Server and set up user authentication.
Use Horizon Console to configure role-based delegated administration.
Use Horizon Console to configure policies for client sessions.
Use Horizon Console to create and configure shortcuts for published desktop or application pools.
Cloud Pod Architecture
250,000 total sessions
50 pods
10,000 sessions per pod
15 sites
7 Connection Server instances per pod
350 total Connection Server instances
Published Desktops and Applications
Client restrictions for published desktops and applications on RDS hosts are expanded to support Organizational Units (OU).
Use CPU, memory, disk statistics, and session counts to define the load balancing policy for published desktops and applications on RDS hosts.
Virtual Desktops
Instant clones support the vSphere TRIM and UNMAP features for vSAN datastores.
Reuse existing computer accounts to deploy instant clone desktop pools on the domain.
True SSO
After users use True SSO to login to the desktop, they can unlock the desktop after reauthentication from the Workspace ONE portal using the same True SSO logon credentials.
Domain security changes
When users log in to a Horizon 7 version 7.8 Connection Server from Horizon Client, they might need to enter a domain in the User name text box, for example, domain\username or username@domain.com. Depending on the server configuration, the Domain drop-down menu might be hidden, or it might contain *DefaultDomain*. For details, see the information about the Send domain list and Hide domain list in client user interface global settings in the VMware Horizon 7 Security document.
When users log in to a Horizon 7 version 7.8 Connection Server from Horizon Client for Windows, they might need to enter credentials even though they have enabled the Logon as current user setting. A new configuration setting determines whether a Connection Server will accept the Logon as current user setting. For details, see the information about the Accept logon as current user setting in the Horizon 7 Administration document.
For more information on configuring Horizon Connection Server version 7.8 domain settings to work with Horizon Clients earlier than version 5.0, see the VMware Knowledge Base article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/67424.
This release contains new user authentication security improvements that resolve CVE-2019-5513 which is documented in VMSA-2019-0003.
Horizon Agent for Linux
Expanded support for Linux distributions
Horizon Agent for Linux is now supported on desktops running the RHEL 7.6 or CentOS 7.6 distributions.
Multi-monitor support for VMware Horizon HTML Access clients
Beginning with Horizon HTML Access version 5.0, the multi-monitor feature is supported in Horizon 7 for Linux desktops.
Smart card redirection
Horizon 7 version 7.8 supports smart card redirection on Linux desktops running RHEL 7.1 or later. This feature allows client users to authenticate into a Linux desktop using a smart card reader connected to the client system.
Expanded OS support for True Single Sign-on (SSO)
Horizon 7 version 7.8 supports True SSO on Linux desktops running Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04, SLED 12.x SP3, or SLES 12.x SP3.
Read-only mode for Session Collaboration
When an administrator enables this feature, a client user can invite additional users to join a Linux remote desktop session in read-only mode. Only the primary user can access controls on the remote desktop. Additional users can view the desktop but cannot control or make changes to it.
Expanded support for NVIDIA vGPU
NVIDIA vGPU is now supported on Linux desktops running SLED 12.x.
Horizon Agent for
Use regular expressions when you create URL Content Redirection rules. See Regular Expression Rules That URL Content Redirection Supports in the Configuring Remote Desktop Features in Horizon 7 document.
Smart card authentication is now supported with UWP apps, such as Microsoft Edge, in remote desktops.
Helpdesk plugin is included in the Horizon Agent Installer.
VMware Integrated Printing offers a finishing option (staple, booklet) for specific redirected printers.
When an administrator enables the read-only mode for session collaboration, a client user can invite additional users to join a Windows remote desktop session in read-only mode. Only the primary user can access controls on the remote desktop. Additional users can view the desktop but cannot control or make changes to it.
Horizon GPO
The new URL Content Redirection Url Redirection IP Rules Enabled group policy setting enables you to configure IP address and IP address range filtering for the URL Content Redirection feature.
The new VMware Horizon Client Drive Redirection ADMX template file (vdm_agent_cdr.admx) contains group policy settings related to the client drive redirection feature. The Display redirected drive with drive letter setting enables you to configure drive letter behaviour, and the Timeout for drive letter initialization setting enables you specify how long to wait for Windows Explorer to initialise and display drive letters for redirected drives.
The Session Collaboration group policy setting allows you pass input control to collaborators.
The VMware Integrated Printing group policy settings allow you to specify a filter to redirect a client printer and set print preview options.
VMware Cloud on AWS
Instant clone desktop pools support NSX-t network segments.
For a list of Horizon 7 features supported on VMware Cloud on AWS, see the VMware Knowledge Base article 58539.
The video below from VMware EUC Technical Marketing provides more details on this update.
The official VMware release notes for Horizon 7 version 7.8 can be found at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/7.8/rn/horizon-78-view-release-notes.html