How-to install the VMware View Composer (incl video)

For an upcoming presentation I’m installing the VMware View Composer on a Windows 2008 R2 box and being fairly new to the VMware View architecture I just thought I should click and go… Ok, maybe I should have looked into the manual but where’s the fun in that :). In all honesty: the VMware documentation is good and well written so if I would have read the guides I probably wouldn’t ran into these problems.

View DSN Error

View DSN Error

I got myself a Windows 2008 R2 VM, just a standard VM in my test domain. The only thing installed were the VMware Tools. So I logged into the box and launched the VMware-viewcomposer-5.2.0-983460 and after excepting the usual EULA and adding .Net 3.5 I could get to an installation dialog saying ‘ODBC DSN setup’. When I clicked on the button it would throw me an error message saying ‘Setup failed to execute the ODBC Administrator: odbcad32.exe’. I canceled this dialog box and made the system DSN manually via the Control Panel – Administrative Tools – ODBC Data Sources.

View Authentication Warning

View Authentication Warning

I restarted the installation and could enter the details into the configuration screen using the manually made system DSN but after clicking next I would get an warning ‘Connecting to a remote database using windows authentication is not currently supported.’ I had to configure a local SQL account for this database in order to make a successful connection, local SQL accounts are ok although they are a hell to administer. I tend to use AD account because we can use stuff like managed service accounts.

UAC Error

UAC Error

Next stop was the installation itself but that gave me an error too  *sigh*.. After I turned off UAC (and rebooted) I could run the installer and finish the installation of the VMware View Composer.

 

 

So summarizing this I had to manually create a DSN, add a local SQL account and turn off UAC to run this installer. While these steps are pretty easy I made a small video showing the installation like I did:

 

While I hear Citrix’s product are complex and VMware View should be easy to setup I can say that this particular installation could be improved by taking away these problems. I’m fully aware that I should read the manual and thereby be avoiding these issues but the point is software developers (in general) should create software installations that run without having to go through a manual. Installing the software should be easy.. It’s the configuring part that needs a good mind.

 

 

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Kees Baggerman

Kees Baggerman is a Staff Solutions Architect for End User Computing at Nutanix. Kees has driven numerous Microsoft and Citrix, and RES infrastructures functional/technical designs, migrations, implementations engagements over the years.

One comment

  1. I ran into similar nonsense as you, I also ended up with issues resulting in the install rolling back for no reason.

    I resolved that issue by logging in as the local administrator.

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