The great migration: Install VMware Horizon Mirage Server 4.2

So, now that we’re a day by day closer to the fact that all if you people whom are attached to their XP machines in the enterprise will have to get detached from them and move on to Windows 7 because Microsoft is going to put it into the archives.

With that said, VMware has extremely taken this into consideration and after they acquired Wanova Mirage they’ve done a lot of enhancements on the product including a wizard to handle the migration from Windows 7 to Windows XP.

The first thing I will start with this series is the installation of the VMware Horizon Mirage Server 4.2 you can grab it from here (https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=horizon-mirage) and you will require a My VMware login surely.

Preparation:

1. Setup: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 w/updates (Optional but preferable).
2. Roles: IIS w/ ASP.NET and IIS 6 Compatibility.
3. Features:  .NET 3.5SP1.
4. Install: SQL Server 2008 R2 / Express (Optional, enable TCP ports to the fixed 1433 and disable Dynamic Ports), can be grabbed from _here_.
5. Install:  SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Studio (when installing express).
6. Install: User State Migration Tools 4.0 (it comes now with the Automation Kit which is a ~2.4GB download, so I’ve stripped them out and uploaded them _here_.

Installation:

1. Install: Mirage Management Server:
   • When choosing the MSSQL server leave the instance name blank if you’ve installed the express edition.
   • Since this is a new installation, tick the create new storage area check box.
• For the storage area path, chose the default repository as a shared UNC if you’re going to implement a multiple server cluster.
• Take into consideration that the account which is doing the installation needs to have rights to create the database, and the account which will run the services needs to have rights to the database itself, the database that will be created is called “MirageDB”.
2. Install: Mirage Server:
   • Same database information as the management server.
   • Create a new local cache area, must be a minimum of 100GB (aka 100*1024MB).
   • When using a specific account, best practice is to create a new security group for Mirage admins and add the designate users to it.
   • Default port is 8000 TCP and this is not allowed by default if Windows Firewall is enabled.
3. Install: Mirage Management Console (once installed open the MMC and right-click Add System).
4. Install: Web Management (after installing the web management portal C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis -ir)
5. Install: File Portal (best practice is to install this role on a separate server).

The installation is straight forward, and I will be seeing you in the next blog for doing some initial configuration.

(Abdullah)^2