I have been working on a VMware View lab environment for the Indianapolis VMUG Demo Day event. If you are going to be in the Indianapolis Indiana area on Thursday, July 26th 2012, you should stop by and check out this event. Here is a link to registration and event details: http://www.vmug.com/index.php?mo=cm&op=ld&fid=200.
As part of this VMware View install, I found an interesting KB article worth sharing: Customization of Windows 7 or Vista View virtual machines fail with the error: Customization timed out (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2020627).
The cause of this problem is:
By default, Windows 7 and Vista virtual machines created in vCenter use the E1000 virtual network adapter, which is not compatible with View. The VMXNET3 virtual network adapter must be used in Windows 7 and Vista virtual machines for View desktops.
I never received the ‘customization timed out’ error message, but the desktop pool did stay at the ‘customizing’ stage for over 45 minutes. The reason I found this error interesting, is that the KB article shows that the E1000 network adapter wasn’t supported in View 4.5, 4.6, 5.0 or 5.1. However, I have a View 5.0 installation with a handful of Windows 7 desktops using the E1000 network adapter. I’m not sure why this works in one environment and not in another, but just remember: use VMXNET3 for your Windows 7 desktops! It will save you hours of ‘customizing’ that never finishes.