With version 6.0.10 and higher, VDI Plugin Management includes a policy to provide administrators with an option to detect when a VDI Plugin update is needed, and when to download and install the update. The entire process is done without displaying a prompt or notification to the end user.
This article covers:
The silent update policy is available for VDI Plugin management (version 6.0.10 or higher) for accounts requiring an option to update the VDI Plugin automatically without asking permission or notifying the end user of the update.
By default, when the EnableVDIPluginAutoUpgrade policy is added to a virtual desktop, the user is prompted that a plugin is either missing or needs to be updated. Adding the optional policy for UpdatePluginLater will display a button labeled Later that will wait until the user disconnects before installing. But the user is always prompted to upgrade even if the options are OK, Later, or an Opt Out button.
The following policy must be added to enable the option to update VDI plugins silently. You must also add the policy EnableVDIPluginAutoUpgrade that enables VDI Plugin Management for the desktop. Both policies are required before VDI Plugin updates are done silently.
Key: SOFTWARE\Policies\Zoom\Zoom Meetings\VDI
Value: ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate
Value Type: DWORD
Value Description:
(0) Default (Users are prompted to install a missing or out-of-date VDI Plugin)
(1) Enabled (Users are not prompted and new plugins are automatically downloaded and installed after the user disconnects from their desktop)
When the policy ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate is configured, the prompt dialog is no longer displayed to the end user. The behavior is the following:
When the user next connects to their virtual desktop, the newer VDI plugin will be available for optimization. The end user is not notified that the plugin was installed or updated.
The VDI silent update feature has the following limitations:
The ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate policy will suppress the prompt to the end user about the need to update. As noted above, the Later policy will not be presented to users unless they are prompted to remove an incompatible plugin. The Opt Out policy is ignored entirely and is not displayed at all, even if the prompt to remove an incompatible plugin is displayed. The Opt Out policy is only displayed in the prompt dialog for a missing or out-of-date plugin.
There is a policy called EnableVDIPluginAutoUpdateProgress that was added in release 5.17.10. This policy was provided to override a change in behavior where previous releases of VDI Plugin Management would install the VDI Plugin silently but the download progress of the VDI Plugin package was displayed. The download progress was hidden in 5.17.10 but a policy was provided for customers that wanted to display the download progress. When using ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate, however, the intention is to hide all notifications and the EnableVDIPluginAutoUpdateProgress policy will be ignored.
Additionally, the policy added for 6.0.10, called VDIPluginAutoUpdateDescription, is ignored. This policy is used to customize the dialog text in the prompt dialog displayed to the user when a plugin needs to be installed for a missing or older plugin. Since the ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate policy hides that prompt dialog, the VDIPluginAutoUpdateDescription does not apply if ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate is enabled.
Some policies and configurations can be used with the ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate policy. The following are policies that are intended to work with ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate:
While the policy EnableVDIPluginAutoUpdateOptOut, which adds an Opt Out button to the update prompt dialog, does not apply when using the ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate policy (since that dialog is not displayed), users are still provided with another option to opt out. A VDI Plugin management application is installed with VDI Plugin management beginning with release 5.17.10. This application provides individual users with an option to disable VDI Plugin updates by unchecking the option to Opt in to be notified about installing updates. The state of that checkbox is controlled by the user and overrides the EnableVDIPluginAutoUpgrade on that device. For managed devices, the status of the checkbox is ignored if there is a local policy to disable VDI Plugin Management.
If a user disables VDI Plugin Management using the Opt Out checkbox, the ForceSilentVDIPluginUpdate policy no longer applies as the local configuration has disabled updates.