Upgrading To Horizon View 5.2 – Composer Server

Horizon View 5.2, brings with it a host of new features.  The one which I’m most excited about is being able to access your desktop from any HTML5 browser without the need for the View Client.  A list of enhancements is shown below (source VMware View 5.2 release notes)

What’s New with End User Experience

• Support for Windows 8 based desktops¹
• Hardware Accelerated 3D Graphics¹
• Improved video and VOIP communications with Microsoft Lync 2013 support⁴
• Streamlined access to View Desktops from Horizon²
• Easily connect to desktops from any device with HTML Access³
• Enhanced productivity from mobile devices with new ‘Unity Touch’ functionality^{3 and 4}

What’s New with Ease of Management

• Large pool creation with elimination of 8 host limits, and multiple vLAN support
• View Administrator performance improvements with large numbers of desktops
• Accelerated provisioning and recompose operations.
• Tech Preview of a new Integrated Service Console in the vSphere Web Client¹
• Support for vCenter Server Virtual Appliance based deployments

What’s New with Total Cost of Ownership

• Substantial storage capacity savings for persistent desktops with space-efficient (SE sparse) disk technology¹

¹ Requires use of vSphere 5.1 and subsequent patches
² Requires use of VMware Horizon Suite
³ Requires use of additional VMware Horizon View 5.2 Feature Pack
⁴ Requires use of latest VMware Horizon View Clients

Upgrade Process

Before we embark on this upgrade process, the number one rule is to get a good backup.  Once you have this, then the number two rule is to follow the official documentation which can be found here.

The order in which I’m going to tackle the upgrade is as follows:

1. View Composer
2. View Connection Server including Horizon View Feature Pack 1
3. View Security Server
4. View Transfer Server
5. View Agent
6. View Client

View Composer

In my home lab, View Composer is sitting on my vCenter Server, so the first thing we are going to do is download the correct installer.  These can be found from here and at the time of writing the latest release is VMware-viewcomposer-5.2.0-983460.exe

Launch the installer

Click Next

As always we need to accept the EULA

Select the install location, I advise leaving this as the default unless you have a good reason not to.

The next bit could be tricky, if you have forgotten your passwords as View needs to upgrade the database.  Enter your credentials and click Next

We are gong to create a new default SSL certificate and click Next

If everything is golden, you should see the Install button.  Give it a Click.

The install takes a few minutes so you might want to get yourself a cup of tea.

After hitting finish, we need to give our vCenter Server a reboot.  Click Yes and I will see you on the other side.

To make sure everything is ‘tickety boo’ if you check Programs & Features to verify your install package.