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Quick Tip: Download the latest Windows 10/11 ISO files

In my lab environment, I use the latest Windows 10/11 versions for creating and testing golden images for VDI environments.

To download the latest Windows ISOs file I use the Windows Media Creation Tool. This is a Windows-based tool. When starting the Windows Media Creation Tool it opens a Graphical User Interface and you are able to download Windows Home (N), Education (N), and the Pro (N) ISO. To download the Enterprise version you need to enter the command line. Here are the steps explained to download a Windows 10/11 Enterprise ISO:

  • Download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool (Link) or Windows 11 Media Creation Tool (Link)
  • Select: “Download Tool now”
  • Open the command line
  • Use the following command to download the English 64-bits Windows 10/11 Enterprise ISO:
MediaCreationTool21H2.exe /Eula Accept /Retail /MediaArch x64 /MediaLangCode en-US /MediaEdition Enterprise
mediacreationtool.exe /Eula Accept /Retail /MediaArch x64 /MediaLangCode en-US /MediaEdition Enterprise
  • To download the Dutch 64-bits Windows 10/11 Enterprise ISO use the following command:
MediaCreationTool.exe /Eula Accept /Retail /MediaArch x64 /MediaLangCode nl-NL /MediaEdition Enterprise
  • Enter the product key “NPPR9-FWDCX-D2C8J-H872K-2YT43”.  The KMS client keys can be found here: link

  • Select: Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC

  • Select “Iso file” and browse to a location to store the ISO. You need at least 8GB free on the C-drive and the ISO size is between 4 and 5 GB.

  • The download of the Windows 10 ISO starts.

Once the downloading of the ISO is completed it’s ready for use.

Enable Adobe Flash support for the VMware Horizon Administrator console

Adobe Flash is no longer supported after December 31, 2020, and currently disabled by default.

During my consulting work, I still see organizations that use Adobe Flash-based applications such as the VMware Horizon Administrator. VMware Horizon 7.10 has an HTML5 based Horizon Console that nearly feature-complete and replaces the Adobe Flash-based Horizon Console.

For organizations, it can difficult to manage there VMware Horizon environments below version 7.10 of VMware Horizon. This can be done by enabling Adobe Flash temporarily. Caution: Enabling Adobe Flash is a security breach for your environment. So use with caution!!!

With the following steps you can enable Adobe Flash support on a Windows:

  • Download Firefox 78.6.1 ESR, link
  • Create or edit the following file: ‘C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg’ with the following settings:
EOLUninstallDisable=1
SilentAutoUpdateEnable=0
EnableAllowList=1
AutoUpdateDisable=1
ErrorReportingEnable=1
AllowListUrlPattern=https://fqdn-of-the-horizon-connection-server:443
  • Replace the ‘AllowListURLPattern’ with the FQDN of the VMware Horizon Connection server or load balancer URL
  • Open Firefox and enter the VMware Horizon Connection server or load balancing URL

When you are still using the VMware Horizon Administrator make sure to upgrade your VMware Horizon environment. The end of general support for Horizon 7 is March 2021. Upgrade to minimal VMware 7.13 (has general support till October of 2022) or VMware Horizon 8.x.

Patch a vCenter Server High Availability (VCHA) environment

Last week I tried to patch a vCenter Server High Availability (VCHA) 7 cluster environment. I read the documentation and the procedure described looks still the same as in version 6.x. First patch the witness node, then the passive node, failover the active node, and patch the passive node using the software-packages tool. The whole process is described in this link.

When I tried to stage the ISO on the witness node the following error occurred:

You can not patch a vCenter Server appliance in a vCenter HA cluster. resolution: You must remove the vCenter HA configuration, apply patches to vCenter Server appliance, and then reconfigure your vCenter HA deployment.

So I removed the vCenter Server HA cluster configuration and patched the single vCenter Server Appliance.

After the patching of the single VCSA, I redeployed the VCHA cluster again.

Conclusion: The vCenter Server HA cluster documentation still has the VCHA 6 update procedure documented that does not work anymore. I will update this blog article if there is more information available.