There are 2 ways to connect to COE-VDI. The preferred method requires the installation of a software client, the second easier method uses a standard web browser.
Installing Horizon Client Software (Preferred)
From your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, simply open a web browser and navigate to the URL https://vdi.engr.washington.edu
1. You will see the VMWare Horizon Screen and the options of installing the VMWare Horizon Client, or HTML access.
2. Choose “Install the Horizon Client” from the selection page shown above. You will need to know what your devices Operating System is. This is a VMWare page, but at the time of publication, the choices looked like this:
The selections for common devices would be as follows:
Phones/Tablets
- Apple iPhone or iPad – VMWare Horizon Client for iOS
- Any Android based phone or tablet – VMWare Horizon Client for Android
Laptops
- Windows based (newer) – VMWare Horizon Client for Windows – 64-bit
- Windows based (older) - VMWare Horizon Client for Windows – 32-bit
- Mac– VMWare Horizon Client for Mac
- After identifying the best choice, proceed to the associated ‘Go to Downloads’ page
- Download the file and run.
- Follow the instructions and finish the installation.
- Launch the VMware Horizon Client
- In the Horizon client, click 'Add Server', then enter vdi.engr.washington.edu to connect.
6. You will then be prompted for your UW NetID credentials to connect to a desktop session.
7. Once logged in, you will see a list of your available virtual desktops and applications. As our GPU licenses are limited, we ask that students default to using the non-GPU VM pools. The GPU virtual desktops have 8GB of RAM, while the non-GPU virtual desktops have 12GB of RAM.
8. You will then be connected to a standard Windows Operating System desktop.
Using HTML access (easiest)
1. From your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, simply open a web browser and navigate to the URL https://vdi.engr.washington.edu
2. You will see the VMWare Horizon Screen and the options of installing the VMWare Horizon Client, or simply using HTML to access.
In most access scenarios, using HTML access provides excellent functionality without the need to bother with installing the Horizon Client.
3. After choosing VMWare Horizon HTML Access, you will be prompted for your UW NetID login credentials.
4. You will then be connected to a standard Windows operating system desktop.
Saving Your Work
Remember that all desktop sessions are non-persistent. This means that the Windows environment is refreshed at each login with no data retention from the previous session. Do not save any data on the workstation you wish to retain. All work should be saved to your U: Drive location.
A link is provided on the VDI session Windows desktop to this location. Syncing for your U: Drive is optional for faculty/staff. For more information about using the U: Drive, see UWIT's U Drive: documentation web page.
Remote Desktop Collaboration
With the Session Collaboration feature, you can invite users to join your remote desktop session by sending collaboration invitations by email, in an instant message (Windows remote desktops only), or by copying a link to the clipboard and forwarding the link to users.
A remote desktop session that is shared in this way is called a collaborative session. The user that shares a session with another user is called the session owner, and the user that joins a shared session is called a session collaborator.
1. Look for the Horizon collaboration icon in the system tray of the virtual desktop.
2. Clicking this icon will open the Collaboration Dialogue Box, enter the NetID of the user you wish to invite into your desktop session, press <Enter> to validate the NetID.
3. You then select the invitation method – email, IM or copy link and you have created the invite – note that if you copy link you must send that link to the invitee yourself. Up to 5 users can be invited into a single user session simultaneously.
Similar to other remote meeting apps, once an invite has been sent, an icon will appear on your virtual desktop and the session collaboration interface turns into a dashboard to show the current state of the session.
