One of the areas where Horizon 6.2 has a lot of improvements is in the User Experience category.  The new version adds new features as well as brings a few older features out of tech preview.

Client Drive Redirection for VDI and RDSH

Client Drive redirection for Windows was in Tech Preview in Horizon 6.1.1.  It officially comes out of Tech Preview in Horizon 6.2, and it is now supported on both Windows and Mac clients.  It is also available as a tech preview for Linux clients.

This feature, when installed on the virtual desktop, allows users to remotely access files and data that might have stored on their local PC.  It utilizes compression and encryption when transferring files from the endpoint into the virtual desktop or server. 

Windows 10 Support

Although Windows 10 was officially supported on vSphere 6 on Day 1, it wasn’t supported in Horizon.  Virtual desktops built on Windows 10 would work, but there limits to what you could do, and other components of the Horizon Suite were not designed to work with or support it.

Horizon 6.2 has full support for Windows 10.  The Horizon Agent and Client are supported.  This includes Smart Card authentication support.

Windows 10 is only supported when running ESXi 5.5 Update 3 or ESXi 6.0 Update 1.

File Type Associations for Published Apps

There are times when I may want to allow a user to launch an application or work with files without installing the required applications on their machines.  In these cases, the user would then have to log into Horizon, launch the application, and then navigate to the network location where the file was stored.

But what if I could register a file handler in Windows that would allow me to double click on that file and have it launch the remote application automatically?  Horizon 6.2 now adds this capability.

In order to improve the user experience when opening files remotely, a data compression algorithm is utilized when transferring the files up to the remote host.  This transfer is also protected with SHA 256 encryption for when clients are remotely accessing the remote application over the Internet.

Mac OSX and IOS Support

Horizon Client 3.5 will be supported on OSX 10.11 and IOS 9.

Biometric Authentication

The Horizon Client for IOS will support biometric authentication.  This feature will allow users to store their credentials in Keychain and utilize their fingerprints to sign into their virtual desktops or published applications.  Administrators can also define polices for who can use this feature from with the Horizon Administrator console.

This feature is only supported with Horizon 6.2 when using Horizon Client 3.5.  The mobile device must also be running IOS 8 or IOS 9.