5.2

Recover Data from a Local Desktop
View
secures the virtual machine of a local desktop by encrypting all of its virtual disks. If the virtual machine's
checkout identifier is deleted from the configuration, or the session or policy files become corrupted, you might
not be able to power on or check in the local desktop. You can decrypt the local desktop's virtual machine so
that you can recover data from it.
IMPORTANT Use this procedure only if you cannot recover the data in a local desktop by any other method.
The View Connection Server instance must have access to the View LDAP configuration that holds the
authentication key for the local desktop.
Depending
on how much data you want to recover, you can choose to decrypt either the full virtual machine
or one of its constituent disks. The decryption process is faster if you decrypt a single disk.
Prerequisites
n
Verify that you cannot roll back the local desktop without data being lost.
n
Verify that the data in the local desktop has not been replicated or saved in another location.
n
Log in as a user in the Administrators role on the Windows computer on which the View Connection
Server instance is installed.
n
Ensure that the folder in which you intend to perform the decryption has sufficient space to store both the
encrypted and decrypted virtual machine files, and that you have write permission on the folder.
Procedure
1 Copy the virtual machine files from the client machine to a local folder on the View Connection Server
instance.
IMPORTANT Do not access the files using a network share or mapped drive.
2 To decrypt a file, run the vdmadmin command.
vdmadmin -V -rescue -d
desktop -u domain \ user -infile path_to_VM_file
Option Description
-d desktop
Specifies the name of the desktop pool.
-infile path_to_VM_file
Specifies the path to the virtual machine file for the local desktop's virtual
machine.
To recover a full virtual machine, specify the name of the VMware virtual
machine
configuration file (VMX file) as the argument to the -infile option.
To recover a single disk from a virtual machine, specify the name of the
VMware virtual disk file (VMDK file) for the disk as the argument to the
-infile option. Do not specify a VMDK file that corresponds to a disk slice.
-u domain\user
Specifies the domain and name of the local desktop's end user.
The vdmadmin command writes the decrypted virtual machine files to a subfolder named rescued.
Example: Decrypting Virtual Machine Files
Decrypt a full virtual machine by specifying its VMX file.
vdmadmin -V -rescue -d lmdtpool -u MYCORP\jo -infile
"J:\Temp\LMDT_Recovery\CN=lmdtpool,OU=Applications,DC=mycorp,DC=com.vmx"
VMware Horizon View Administration
348 VMware, Inc.