Starting with release 5.11.0, Zoom added a new option to the download options for a Windows Universal Installer to install VDI plugins. This new installation package can install any or all of the supported Windows VDI plugins for Zoom Meetings and Zoom Phone optimization for Citrix, VMware, and AVD/Windows 365.
This article covers:
The Windows Universal Installer can be used with either the standard wizard interface that provides step-by-step instructions or with command line options through the msiexec.exe application.
The wizard interface is presented when double-clicking to start the installation. The greeting screen begins the installation process and the following screen provides options for how to continue with the installation.
For administrators familiar with how to deploy MSI packages using command line options, the Windows Universal Installer supports all the standard installation options with some additional options specific to our VDI plugins.
If you want to install a VDI plugin for either the Citrix or VMware platforms, you must install the connection software from those vendors first. For Citrix, you need to first install the Citrix Workspace client. For VMware, you need to install the VMware Horizon client.
Once the client connection software from Citrix or VMware has been installed, the Default installation option will automatically install the corresponding VDI Plugin. If you select the Custom option during installation, the check box for either Citrix or VMware will be enabled only if the Citrix or VMware connection clients are detected.
The Universal Installer for Windows was designed to support upgrading any previous VDI plugin. The new installer removes the older plugin version and installs the latest version supported by the Universal Installer.
If you previously installed more than one type of VDI plugin, the Universal Installer will remove all installed plugins before installing your new selection of VDI plugins.
The Universal Installer for Windows provides 2 radio button options after accepting the initial installation screen. The Default (Install all plugins possible) radio button is selected the first time you run the installer. This option will check the target machine to determine if Citrix Workspace is installed and also check for the VMware Horizon client. If either or both of those connection clients have already been installed, the Default option will automatically install the corresponding Citrix and/or VMware VDI Plugin. The AVD VDI Plugin does not require a connection client and will always be installed when selecting Default.
The Custom radio button allows you to specify a specific VDI plugin or plugins. You must still install Citrix Workspace if you want to install the Citrix VDI Plugin or the VMware Horizon client if you want to install the VMware VDI Plugin. Since the AVD plugin is always installed if you select Default, the Custom option allows you to skip the AVD Plugin if you do not want the AVD plugin to be installed.
If you select Custom to specify specific VDI plugins, your choices are remembered and will be used to reselect the same options in the future when a new VDI plugin release is available and you run the installer again. This is also true if command line options are used to specify which plugins to install. Running a new release of the VDI Plugin installer using the Wizard interface will select the Custom option and display the previously specified plugins. If you are using the command line options, you can use or change your command line arguments to specify your selections.
Zoom understands that moving to a new installer may require additional time for some customers to evaluate and approve the new software for internal use. We will continue to release the independent versions of our Windows installers for a limited time to accommodate the time required for customers to switch to the new Windows Universal Installer. We intend to remove and no longer offer the single installers for Windows in the future, however, and encourage everyone to start using the new Windows Universal Installer as soon as possible.
The new Windows Universal Installer supports all of the same MSI options supported in the previous installers for the dedicated VDI plugins for Windows. In addition, there are new options to specify which VDI Plugins are to be installed. These options for command line arguments allow an administrator to achieve the same objective that can be achieved using the Custom option when installing with the full wizard user interface.
If you are going to use the following options, ensure that you add CUSTOMINSTALL=2 to your command line arguments.
The new options are as follows.
INSTALLFORCITRIX INSTALLFORVMWARE INSTALLFORAVD
The following is an example where the command line arguments are used to install all three plugins.
msiexec.exe /i ZoomAllInOnePlugin.msi INSTALLFORCITRIX=1 INSTALLFORVMWARE=1 INSTALLFORAVD=1
The new installer replaces the older VDI Plugin installers and will be the only installer option in the future. If you want to go back to the older installer choice for an older version, you will need to use the option to uninstall the plugins installed with the Windows Universal Installer. This is standard for our VDI software packages. Installing an older version of either the VDI Zoom Meeting client or the VDI Plugin on top of a newer release is not supported.