Recently, we had an issue within our environment where-in end-users complained of intermittently one-way clipboard not working(Virtual Desktop to Endpoint will fail). The tricky part here was it would happen intermittently to anyone without any set pattern.
Environment Details:
VMware Horizon 7.11
VMware App Volumes 2.18.1
VMware Dynamic Environment Manager 9.10
VMware Horizon Client 5.x
Process of elimination
- We were not using the Horizon Blast GPO for setting the clipboard.
- The clipboard was setup using DEM Horizon Smart Policies – Enabled Both Directions
- Upgrade the Horizon Client to the latest version to remove any Client related issues
- We already had the anti-virus process exclusion of VMwareViewClipboard.exe
- We disabled the Writable Volumes, and the clipboard issue will never occur.
Resolution
The above test made it evident that something within the Writable Volumes was causing the intermittent clipboard issue. The next thing that came to mind is adding path/process exclusion within the snapvol.cfg. One may ask how did you determine that path, but recently we have had many application issues that needed exclusion to make them work.
What I didn’t know was which path or process, until the task manager showed a clipboard process for Horizon called – VMwareViewClipboard.exe and its Path – C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Remote Experience\x64. I read many communities post having mentioned this process. However, I wasn’t sure if adding the entire path exclusion made sense as I could see many Horizon process *.exe and wasn’t sure what additional repercussions it can have. I went ahead, adding the below process exclusion.
| exclude_process_name=VMwareViewClipboard.exe |
Post adding the exclusion, all the end-users with intermittent clipboard issues were always able to do two side clipboard. In this blog, I am not outlining the steps on how to add the snapvol.cfg exclusion as my ex-colleague Daniel Bakshi outlines on a VMware blog post on how to do it step by step.
Update 2nd May 2020
We had a VMware GSS support case open on the same issue, and they came back with a suggestion to exclude this registry path instead of the process exclusions. Note we been told there is no impact with process or registry, but its a good practice to do registry/path exclusions instead of the process. This registry/subkeys are responsible for the Clipboard – DEM Horizon Smart Policies.
| exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware UEM |
I hope you will find this information useful if you encounter intermittent clipboard issues.
Thanks,
Aresh Sarkari
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