Customizing the desktop

Now that the new linked clone virtual desktop machine has been built, the next step in the process is to customize it.

To customize the virtual desktop machine, follow these steps:

The virtual desktop machine is switched to customization mode.
The virtual desktop machine is customized by vCenter Server using the customizeVM_Task command and is joined to the domain with the information you entered in the View Manager console.
The linked clone virtual desktop is powered on.
The View Composer Agent on the linked clone virtual desktop machine starts up for the first time and joins the machine to the domain, using the NetJoinDomain command and the machine account password that was created on the internal disk.
The linked clone virtual desktop machine is now Sysprep'd or Quickprep'd. Once complete, View Composer tells View Agent that the customization has finished, and View Agent tells View Manager that the customization process has finished.
The linked clone virtual desktop machine is powered off and a snapshot is taken. If you use Quickprep, then you don't need to restart the virtual desktop machine following customization.
The linked clone virtual desktop machine is marked as provisioned and is now available for use.

When an end user connects and powers on a linked clone virtual desktop machine, the View Composer agent installed on that virtual desktop is able to track changes to the machine account password. If there is a change, then the new updated password will be stored on the linked clone internal disk. The machine account password is often changed, depending on password policies, so if the View Composer agent detects this change of password, then it will update the machine account password on the internal disk that was created when the linked clone desktop was created. This is a key feature when refreshing linked clone disks, as the linked clone virtual desktop machine reverts back to the snapshot taken after the virtual desktop machine has been customized. This means that the View Composer agent can reset the machine account password to the latest one.

The linked clone process is depicted in the following diagram:

In the next section, we are going to look at some of the additional features and functions of using linked clones.