5.2

Table Of Contents
Figure 1-2. High-Level Example of a Horizon View Environment
ESXi hosts running
Virtual Desktop virtual machines
View
Connection
Server
View
Administrator
(browser)
VMware vCenter Server
with View Composer
network
Windows
View Client
Mac
View Client
Windows View Client
with Local Mode
Thin Client
virtual desktops
ESXi host
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
VM
virtual machine
desktop OS
app app app
View Agent
Microsoft
Active Directory
Terminal Servers
blade PCs
physical PCs
non-vCenter VMs
View Agent
View
Transfer Server ThinApp
tablet
Client Devices
A major advantage of using Horizon View is that desktops follow the end user regardless of device or location.
Users can access their personalized virtual desktop from a company laptop, their home PC, a thin client device,
a Mac, or a tablet.
From tablets and from Mac, Linux, and Windows laptops and PCs, end users open View Client to display their
View desktop. Thin client devices use View thin client software and can be configured so that the only
application that users can launch directly on the device is View Thin Client. Repurposing a legacy PC into a
thin client desktop can extend the life of the hardware by three to five years. For example, by using
Horizon View on a thin desktop, you can use a newer operating system such as Windows 7 on older desktop
hardware.
If you use the HTML Access feature, end users can open a View desktop inside a browser, without having to
install any client application on the client system or device.
Chapter 1 Introduction to Horizon View
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