Horizon View Agent™ Direct-Connection Plugin is an installable extension to View Agent. It allows a Horizon Client to directly connect to a View desktop; or to Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 as View desktop; or to Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1，Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2 as RDSH (Remote Desktop Session Host) role.

It is intended for use in specific View deployments that work without a full View Connection Server available. There are no changes required to Horizon Clients or the View Agent for this to work. All currently supported Horizon Clients from VMware and from third-party vendors are supported with View Agent Direct-Connection Plugin.

This guide walks through how to deploy View Agent Direct-Connection Plugin, provides information about installing and using this component, and includes system requirements and configuration details.

For this type of View deployment, there is no requirement to have a Connection Server, security server, VMware vCenter Server™, or View Composer™ server. The virtual desktop can be joined to an Active Directory domain, but it can also operate without Active Directory if required and users can log in with local desktop credentials instead. Figure 1 shows the deployment.

Figure 1: View Agent Direct-Connection Deployment

The following scenarios are covered in this guide:

• View Agent Direct-Connection Plugin on View Desktop (Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8)
• View Agent Direct-Connection Plugin on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 as View Desktop
• View Agent Direct-Connection Plugin on Windows Server 2008 R2/2012 as RDSH Role
• Authentication Configuration
• Connect from Horizon Client