VMware View 4.5 - Building the Windows 7 Thin Client (Part 2)

Note: that this works with all View Client versions View 4.5, 4.6 and 5.0.

Update 4-4-2011- Added the scripts and the fix windows size Powershell shell.

This post is part of a Series of Posts

• VMware View 4.5 - Thin Client with PCoIP using Windows 7 (Part 1)
  
• VMware View 4.5 - Building the Windows 7 Thin Client (Part 2)
• VMware View 4.5 - Configuring the Local Account on the Thin Client (Part 3)

The this guide will walk you through building a Thin Client will have the following details.

• Running Windows 7
• Using the PCoIP Protocol
• User authentication based on AD
• The Thin Client will have a replaced shell to limit the users to VMware View Client only.
• The Client can be configured to use a particular Pool or offer the user any they have access

Thin Client OS Install

The Thin Client only needs to be protected and run VMware View. The OS is about the only software we need installed and I'll be reploying clones of this machine so I only plan to build it once by hand. Starting with a formated machine that's same as the hardware it'll be running on in the lab. I run a fresh Windows 7 install from DVD. After the Install with normal options for your enviroment. I make the following changes.

• Updates service configured to auto update and download other microsoft updates
• Install all possible Microsoft updates
• Update any drivers
• Disable UAC
• Set for best performance
• turn off system restore points
• Enable remote desktop.
• Stop and disable the Themes Service
• Check that the newest version of  Powershell is installed
• Change Power settings
• Don't password protect awaking from sleep
• Let Sleep monitor and/or machine

Creating a ViewUser and Changing its Shell

We need a Local User that we will use to run VMware View Client from. We could have users log in as themselves but I didn't for a the following reason. If we make users login to Windows. They would login to the machines, profile would be created, then View Client Launched, Authentication is passed, then finally the user is prompted for what VM they would like to access. After they select it they have to wait for it to login and create another profile. Very time consuming. We can skip all of the first profile copy issues by createing a already logged in local user. So Instead lets create the local user.

Using Sysprep with CopyProfile in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008

First rule of testing a sysprep unattened file:

Thou shall test your unattend xml file on a newly unconfigured OS install before blaming the file.

The Reason: Before becomeing a server admin I made my way by developing new and better ways to deploy computers on campus. I moved to the server team before Vista came out so my experitise was in mostly with Windows XP. So recently after 5hrs of trying to do the once simple task of copying the administrator profile to the default profile I can say that things have changed.  First let me setup what I'm working on, then share what can so you can avoid the problems I had.

The Goal: To use the <CopyProfile> option with sysprep to copy the Administrator profile to the default profile on a Windows 7.

The Problems: Things that can go wrong will.

• If your using a Virtual Machine that some one else built, you don't know what they did or didn't do. In my case my brother built a tweaked Virtual Machine for Windows 7 stripped for speed. At some point he made the profiles/registry gods upset and sysprep no longer can listen to the <CopyProfile> option. See here for fix. 
• You need to be able to read the local disk Incase the box will not boot or in this case gets stuck in a sysprep endless boot. I can't over state this. You can not see whats wrong with sysprep with out this. In my case I used a network PXE server with WinPE loaded with VMware Drivers. However note that PXE doesn't work with VMXNET3 and ESX 4.1 as of yet. See my other post.
• Sysprep isn't your friend, its more of the coworker you have to deal with. Learn to get along with it as its not going anywhere. 

The Solution
The only truly supported way to copy a profile in Windows 7 to the default to do so by using Sysprep to do the Profile copy. If you search the web many people list ways but they shouldn't be used in real production environments and require manually editing the registry files. And honestly you don't should need these shortcuts as doing the copy via sysprep is easy enough if you follow this post.

First configure the Administrator Profile to the way you want. Make sure you opened most programs and everything works. I'm not going to go through the finer points of this and may make a post on it later and link to it here.

VMware VMXNET3 Driver with WinPE

Today working with View I found out that the VMWare VMXNET3 Nic Type won't allow you to boot to a WinPE even if the driver has been added to the WinPE. I did read that this would be fixed in ESX 4.1 Update 1 but I couldn't confirm that.

The very second that the WinPE starts to download this error is given with the VMXNET3 Nic.

This was picture was taken on from our ESX 4.1.0 environment.

Instead use the E1000 Nic Type and behold A working WinPE running on a VMware Virtual Machine. Incase you were wondering why I was trying to WinPE on a Virtual Machine. Its because I'm using it to trouble shoot sysprep configuration problems I've been having building Virtual Machines for VMware Veiw. The VM will run into an error in sysprep and go into a endless reboot loop. However by booting to the WinPE  i can mount the local drive and read the sysprep log.

I'll post more on the sysprep issues later.

Using the E1000 Nic Type WinPE loads perfectly.