Last week I did a post on the Teradici PCoIP Management Console where I mentioned the management console being restricted to only Firefox as browser.

Yesterday I got a comment on that post from the Andrew Naiberg, Management Console Product Manager at Teradici. In his comment he pointed out that the latest version of the Management Console (1.2.2) supports Internet Explorer 7 and 8 in addition to Firefox 3.0 and 3.5.

Nice I thought, so I went to the Wyse download page to see if this new version arrived already. No luck at Wyse, so fired up google to see if the mentioned version was available somewhere else on the web. Unfortunately the only version I could find was the version I already downloaded and tried.

After the Easter holidays (today), I resumed my laptop and was closing all the open internet explorer sessions I left open since my last activity on my laptop. Suddenly I came across the download page from Wyse and without any expectations and just out of curiosity I hit the F5 button to see if the new version was available.

Guess what? The new version of both the P20 firmware and the Teradici PCoIP Management Console are available with a date of availability set on the 5th of April.

Besides a new Management Console version also a new version of the P20 firmware is available. Reading through the release notes of the P20 firmware I want to share some of the new features and fixes that are available with the new firmware.

Important new features in conjunction with VMware View:

• Added support for Windows® 7
• Added experimental support for pre-session secure user authentication via smart card (CAC only). This feature may only be used in conjunction with VMware View™ 4.5 and above. <- Nice!
• Add local cursor/keyboard support. This feature allows users to operate PCoIP sessions over a long latency network connection. The software package is available for Windows 7, Windows Vista® and Windows® XP 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.
• Increased the maximum number of domains displayed when connecting to a VMware View Connection Server from 5 to 100.
• Added support for a large number of European keyboard layouts

Bug fixes:

• Fixed problem that prevents the zero client from establishing an RDP session with a Windows 7 desktop.
• Fixed problem that prevents zero clients from completing the SSL handshake process with VMware View Connection Servers using extended validation certificates.
• Fixed problem that prevents zero clients from connecting with VMware View Connection Servers that have optionally enabled smart cards.
• Fixed problem where the network loss overlay was sometimes not displayed on zero client devices loaded with firmware release 3.0.
• Added support for configuring the following setting via the CMI interface, which is used by the PCoIP Management Console.
  • Session encryption type
  • Host Driver Function

The biggest change in the PCoIP Management Console is the ability to use Internet Explorer 7 and 8 browsers in addition to Firefox 3 and 3.5. Besides that the changes and updates to the management console are minimal, so here are some minimal highlights. Because the firmware version numbering is now changed to a three digit version number, all version numbers including the older ones are now in three digits. Besides the digits, devices now have a colour code attached, devices are shown in green when online and in red when offline.

The user manual of the management console now contains a section on how to run the MC on ESX, it tells you to use vCenter Converter. Standard the MC is delivered as an VMware player Virtual Machine.