Quick tip: Determine the VMware Horizon Agent options for a silent/unattended installation

When performing a silent/unattended installation of the Horizon Agent client you must specify MSI properties and Horizon Agent options to define the configuration of the agent. When a new version of the Horizon Agent comes available the documentation is not always available yet or up to date. When using a silent install of the VMware Horizon Agent with wrong options can result in a setup failed 1603 error.

A quick way to determine what options are available for the Horizon Agent that can be used is to install the Horizon Agent and manually select/deselect the options. After the installation and reboot open Regedit an browse to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VMware, Inc.\Installer\Features_HorizonAgent

Al the options/features are listed and have a value of:

  • Local = Installed/enabled
  • Absent = Not Installed/disabled

These options can be used for silent installing the VMware Horizon Agent. Here is an example that install the Horizon Agent:

VMware-Horizon-Agent-x86_64-7.10.0-14590940.exe  /s /v"/qn VDM_VC_MANAGED_AGENT=1 VDM_FLASH_URL_REDIRECTION=1 RDP_CHOICE=1 INSTALL_VDISPLAY_DRIVER=1 ADDLOCAL=BlastUDP,Core,HelpDesk,NGVC,PerfTracker,ClientDriveRedirection,RTAV,RDP,ThinPrint,TSMMR,USB,V4V,VMWMediaProviderProxy,VmwVaudio,VmwVdisplay,VmwVidd REBOOT=Reallysuppress"

In this example the following MSI properties are installed:

  • RDP is enabled
  • The agent is installed is a vCenter Managed desktop
  • Flash URL redirection is enabled
  • Installs the WDDM display driver

For the VMware Horizon Agent options refer to the following link.

 

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4 thoughts on “Quick tip: Determine the VMware Horizon Agent options for a silent/unattended installation”

  1. Thanks for the helpful article. Since you seem to have some experience how would you proceed to update a VM Horizon Agent installation. Say from 7.7 to 7.10.
    Is it necessary to uninstall 7.7 first, or is it viable to just install 7.10 over the existing version?
    My procedure is as follows:
    1. Uninstall UEM
    2. Uninstall Agent
    3. Install Agent
    4. Install UEM
    But it always fails with 1603 on the agent install.

  3. Hey Ivo,
    my last experience with silent agent installation for version 7.11 says, that as parameter are accepted only items listed inside mentioned key registry. Ex.HTML5MMR has been refused as non-listed and process has been stopped. Items list is in log file, also (C:\ProgramData\VMware\logs) – in pre-installation validation section.

  4. I did try this parameter below but I see this error:

    Error 2711.The specified Feature name (‘VmVideo’) not found in Feature table.
    I am using this command line per documentation in the request:

    VMware-Horizon-Agent-x86_64-2111-8.4.0-19854112.exe/v”/qn VDM_VC_MANAGED_AGENT=1 RDP_CHOICE=1 INSTALL_VDISPLAY_DRIVER=1 VDM_IP_PROTOCOL_USAGE=IPv4 ADDLOCAL=Core,BlastUDP,HelpDesk,NGVC,PerfTracker,PrintRedir,RTAV,RDP,TSMMR,USB,V4V,VMWMediaProviderProxy,VmwVaudio,VmwVdisplay,VmwVidd,VmVideo,SdoSensor,GEOREDIR REBOOT=Reallysuppress”

    I did remove the VmVideo parameter and the install went through successfully. We are running VMTools 11.3.5. any reason why VmVideo would not work?

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