2011-12-28 14:09:17

I am pleased to advise our customers and resellers that the production version of the Mac OS X client, which is considerably more stable than its beta predecessor, is available for download from the Windows 7 portal sites (portal.hvdi.net/friendlyname). This provides superior connectivity and graphics and supports device redirection (although not universal printer redirection just yet). You can find out how to set up vWorkspace for Mac OS X here:

http://support.thinkgrid.co.uk/index.php?/default_import/Knowledgebase/Article/View/276/80/connecting-to-the-windows-7-hosted-desktop-with-the-mac-os-x-vworkspace-client

Matt Platts

Due to a recent update from Microsoft some Internet Explorer versions on the Hosted Desktops are encountering issues with being able to download items, this issue is being worked on by our Engineering team to resolve across the platform but a manual work around is available and can be found at the following:

 http://support.thinkgrid.co.uk/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/274/6/internet-explorer-unable-to-download-items

2011-11-06 14:00:59 

SCOPE: HVDI WINDOWS 7 USERS HOMED IN THE DALLAS DATA CENTER.

I am very pleased to announced that this upgrade to US HVDI Windows 7 desktops this morning was completed successfully. 

IMPORTANT NOTE

While existing iPads, Android tablets and instances of the vWorkspace Application Portal will connect for now with the settings mentioned on our knowledgebase, as we remove the now legacy SSL gateway completely over time, some changes will need to made.

In particular, please uncheck the RDP over SSL option in configuring vWorkspace. In the coming days following this upgrade we will be updating the knowledgebase to reflect this change.

On the iPad and Android:

Go to vWorkspace icon > Edit Farm. Select the default location - this will bring you to the Edit Location menu. Disable RDP over SSL and clear the Secure Gateway field.

On the desktop App Portal:

Go to Actions > Manage Connections, and navigate to Firewall/Proxy Traversal. Untick RDP over SSL and clear the SSL Gateway field.

Maintenance - Performance Improvements and Upgrades to the HVDI Platform - Dallas

Sunday 6th November 2011, 4am - 8am EST

I am pleased to inform you of a major upgrade being made to the ThinkGrid HVD Infrastructure which will affect desktops in our Dallas data center. This will take place on Sunday 6th November between 4am and 8am EST. We understand that this is short notice, and apologise for the same, but we do strongly feel that this is a critical and highly beneficial upgrade. 
This upgrade will product no adverse impacts, and no changes will be made to content or applications within virtual desktops. When the upgrade is complete desktops will be restarted and will be accessible just as before. Our outlined estimated time to completion is 8am EST but the upgrade may be complete beforehand.

ELEMENTS CHANGED

• New graphics drivers have been developed and tested to provide faster usability to desktops, remove lag and improve performance for customers with high latency

• ThinkGrid will be removing an SSL layer between the connection brokers and our customer VLANS to reduce encryption delays between client and virtual desktop. This does not reduce the security between end-points but does remove a bottleneck from the internal process. This means faster session login and improved performance.

IMPACT

• The impact to desktops should be very positive with faster response, better graphics handling and much better performance over the public internet, especially in higher latency environments.

• Desktops will be given secured Public Address space to remove the SSL gateway layer

IMPORTANT

Due to network changes, ThinkGrid are opening the desktops themselves to public IP space. Although ThinkGrid does provide perimeter firewalling and intrusion prevention systems, it’s important to ensure each virtual desktop runs the Windows Firewall to add an extra layer of security. This was enabled by default when the virtual desktops was originally deployed to you, so if you have made no changes there is nothing to do. if you have disabled or made changes to the firewall, please ensure you have adequate rules to protect the desktop in place.
If you have any comments or questions about this maintenance we will be very happy to discuss it with you further. Contact support@thinkgrid.com with any comments or questions.

The Quest vWorkspace connection software supports redirecting a wide variety of USB devices to the HVD hosted desktops, but there are some limitations, and one of these is webcam redirection. Support for webcams is limited, but there is a third party utility provided by Quest Software that supports WIA-capable imaging for webcams, as well as scanner imaging - RemoteScan.

You can find out how to set up RemoteScan here:

http://support.thinkgrid.co.uk/index.php?/default_import/Knowledgebase/Article/View/255/0/installation-of-remotescan-from-quest-on-your-hosted-desktop