Hello World,

Some time ago, I’ve started a post about VDI pool and RDS 2012 R2.  At the end of this post, we had all the necessary elements to create VDI pool. However, the vdi pool creation failed for a stupid error (on my side).  So, we decided to split the post in two part.  This post is the second part of the vdi collection topic.  In this post, we will see how to create a VDI collection from RMDS console.

Let’s go !

 

Check and Recheck your VM Template

So, in order to create our first vdi collection, we first need to have a valid vm template. In the previous post, the integration services were not up to dated and thus the vdi collection creation failed because of that. So, we had to fix our VM template first. We have started our Template, updated the integration services, sysprepped the image and turn it off.  Now we are ready to try again the vdi pool collection.

Note:

a VM template is simply a virtual machine (created on your RDS Virtualization hosts) that has been sysprepped.  If you are using Windows 7, ensure that the integration services are up to date. To sysprep windows 7, you will run the following command

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown.

If you working with Windows 8 or later, apparently the sysprep command that needs to be executed in order to have a successful vdi collection creation is   

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown /vm

Creating the VDI pool Collection

To create a VDI collection, you can perform the following tasks :

Step 1 – Open Server Manager > Remote Desktop Services > Collections node.  In the collection page, click on tasks and select Create Virtual Desktop Collection

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Step 2 – In the Before you begin page, read the info on the page (at least the first time you start the wizard) and Press Next

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Step 3 – In the Name of the Collection, provide name and description. Press Next

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Step 4 – In the Specify Collection Type page, select your collection type.  In this example we have selected Pooled.

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In this page, you can in fact decide to have managed or unmanaged vdi pool.  By default, the option automatically create and manage virtual desktop is ticked.  If you unselect this, you move to a scenario where you vdi pool become unmanaged.  This simply means that if you deselect this option, you will have to choose from an existing virtual machine available on the RDS Virtualization Host and add this one to the VDI Collection.  

Press Next

Step 5 – In the Specify Virtual Desktop Template page, Select your VM template to be used and Press Next

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Step 6 – In the Specify Virtual desktop Settings page, accept default and Press Next

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Step 7 – In the Unattended Settings, select your time zone and the location where the computers account will be created.

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If you have a complex OU structure, you will need to select the option specify Distinguished Name.  The first option is limited to the domain name and top OU structure.

In this page, you also have a warning message (you should read this one).  You have to grant AD rights to the connection broker in order to be able to create computer accounts in the Active Directory.  Here you have two options:

• Click on the Generate script and run it
• provision permissions in advance in Active Directory.  In our scenario, this is the rights that needs to be granted to the broker (screenshot)

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Press Next.

Step 8 – if everything was ok (permissions wise), in the Specify users and groups page, specify who can access the VDI, number of VDI you want to create and how you want to name them.  When Ready, Press Next

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Step 9 – In the Virtual Desktop Allocation page, you have to select where to create your VDI.  IN our scenario, we just have one RDS Virtualization host. Press Next

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Step 10 – In the Specify Virtual Desktop Storage page, select where to store you virtual machines. The option will depends of your infrastructure.

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Note also the option to rollback when user logs off. This option is ticked by default. This means that user settings will not be kept between logon/logoff operations.

Step 11 –  In the user Profile Disks Page, you can decide to use or not a user profile disks.  We will talk about this option later on. Basically, this is the way found by Microsoft to preserve users settings between sessions.   The user settings will be stored on the disks.  When a user logs back to a VDI machine, the user profile disk will be mounted and user should see its settings.

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Step 12 – In the Confirmation page, Review your settings and Press Create

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Step 13 – In the View progress page, you can monitor the progress

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Step 14 – In the View progress Page, when operation is completed, you can press the close button

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Step 15 – In the RDMS Console; you can check that virtual machines have been created for you

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Accessing the VDI pool Collection

To easily access a vdi pool, the user will benefit of integration between RD Web Access and RD Virtualization host.  With no configuration, the VDI pool will be published to the RD Web Access page.

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This integration offers an additional advantage. Indeed, normally there is  single sign on process. once you are logged into the web interface, you should be able to access your Virtual desktop with no prompt (however, I have seen situation where this is not working immediately).

Final Notes

Here you go !  Now you can try to create VDI pool or personal pool (managed or unmanaged) and see how it behaves.  In the coming posts, we will see how we can manage VDI pool and have a look into the user profile disks capability.

Till next time

See ya