I remember seeing a demonstration some time ago from a VDI vendor that showed they could do multimonitor. I also remembered thinking “so what? we can do that as well”. Over time I realized that I was wrong to assume that the advanced capabilities of Quest vWorkspace were that well-known.

So I decided to create a “blair-witch” demo: I just walked up to one of the cubicles that we have over at the Quest Desktop Virtualisation Group HQ and shot a demo of what vWorkspace can do today. My “cameraman” used a webcam as the camera so if it is not the quality you are accustomed to, you know why.

The important part is that the video shows what Quest vWorkspace 6.0 can do today. In the demo we are showing a vWorkspace session to a Windows XP virtual desktop that:

• uses 4 monitors, with the desktop being only on the first monitor (so not just spanning). You could even use monitors with different resolutions if you want to.
• shows how  applications are able to be monitor aware in a vWorkspace sessions (they can maximize to the monitor they are on)
• where we plug in and use different USB devices in this mulitmonitor vWorkspace sessions
• is playing a full HD movie

This is just a very brief demo that does not even show some of the other features of Quest vWorkspace 6.0 like graphics acceleration, user profile management, universal printing, virtual desktop shadowing or any of the other features…

So you’ve installed vWorkspace 6.0, but how is the Graphics Acceleration feature Quest has been talking about enabled? 

First let’s lay out the prerequisites:

1. vWorkspace 6.0 Desktop or Enterprise + Experience Optimization Pack Licenses

2.  If using vWorkspace Desktop Edition, uninstall previous versions of pntools and install the 6.0 version of pntools.msi.  Pntools.msi enables functionality such as Universal Printing, Graphics Acceleration, Universal USB Redirection, Seamless Windows, Enhanced Multi-Monitor, Bi-Directional Audio and Latency Reduction.  Pntools can be pushed to VMs via the vWorkspace Management Console, either one machine at a time, to several machines at the same time, to entire Computer Groups or via Automated Task.

If using vWorkspace Enterprise Edition and Windows Terminal Services, install vWorkspace 6.0 on the Terminal Servers.  Terminal Servers do not require pntools.

3.  Install version 6.0 of the Quest vWorkspace Client.  Currently Graphics Acceleration is only for Windows Clients, but it is scheduled to be ported to Linux Clients in the near term (probably within 90 days).

4.  Access applications or desktops via the vWorkspace 6.0 AppPortal, Web Access or Remote Desktop Connection.  AppPortal or Web Access are the preferred connection types. 

Enabling Graphics Acceleration.

1.  Open the vWorkspace Management Console -> Resources (Node) -> Managed Applications (Node) -> Right Click -> Properties -> Enable Graphics Acceleration and select the Image Quality.  Best Practice is to enable Graphics Acceleration at this location as a system wide setting, and selectively disable it on a specific application (if necessary).

 2.  vWorkspace Management Console -> Resources -> Client Settings -> New… -> Give the new Client Settings Policy a name, for example “Graphics Acceleration Enabled” or “EOP Users” -> Under Optimizations set Graphics Acceleration to “yes”.

 3.  On the “Client Assignments” tab of the Client Settings Policy that you just created, assign this feature to a User, Group, OU, Client IP/IP Range or Client Name/Naming Convention.

At this point Graphics Acceleration is enabled for the specified clients (in my example to my Active Directory User Account).  Typically this would be for everyone, like the Domain Users Group.  The next time the assigned user connects their vWorkspace AppPortal Client to this farm, it will enforce this setting on their client.

If users will be connecting via Web Access, to enforce this setting on clients select “enable Graphics Acceleration” under “Performance” in the Admin portal (shown below). 

Anyone who’s ever used Adobe Acrobat Reader, or any other PDF reader on Windows Terminal Services or via Remote Desktop knows that it’s painfully slow over RDP.  Most of the videos we’ve posted demonstrating Quest’s EOP Graphics Acceleration have shown web content, as it’s usually the biggest pain point for Terminal Services & VDI users. 

It’s important to note that Quest EOP accelerates all graphical elements of the Terminal Services or VDI display, and in the video below I demonstrate, side-by-side, the difference between Microsoft RDP and Quest EOP when viewing a PDF with Acrobat Reader 9.0 over a WAN connection.  The connection was from my notebook computer in San Diego, CA to two virtual desktops in Reston, VA, via my Verizon wireless cellular card.  This connection was also tunneled thru Quest’s Secure-IT SSL Gateway.  The bandwidth of this connection is approximately 384Kbps and the latency of the connection is approximately 175ms.

quest_eop_vs_rdp_pdf_wan