Administration

Procedure
1 Choose whether to recompose the whole desktop pool or a single machine.
Option Action
To recompose all virtual machines
in the desktop pool
a In View Administrator, select Catalog > Desktop Pools.
b Select the desktop pool to recompose by double-clicking the pool ID in
the left column.
c On the Inventory tab, click Machines.
d Use the Ctrl or Shift keys to select all the machine IDs in the left
column.
e Select Recompose from the View Composer drop-down menu.
To recompose selected virtual
machines
a In View Administrator, select Resources > Machines.
b Select the machine to recompose by double-clicking the machine ID in
the left column.
c On the Summary tab, select Recompose from the View Composer
drop-down menu.
2 Follow the wizard instructions.
You can select a new virtual machine to be used as the parent virtual machine for the desktop pool.
On the Ready to Complete page, you can click Show Details to display the linked-clone desktops that
will be recomposed.
The linked-clone virtual machines are refreshed and updated. The OS disks are reduced to their original
size.
In a dedicated-assignment pool, unassigned linked clones are deleted and recreated. The specified number
of spare virtual machines is maintained.
In a floating-assignment pool, all selected linked clones are recomposed.
In vCenter Server, you can monitor the progress of the recomposition on the linked-clone virtual machines.
In View Administrator, you can monitor the operation by clicking Catalog > Desktop Pools, double-clicking
the pool ID, and clicking the Tasks tab. You can click Cancel task, Pause task, or Resume task to terminate
a task, suspend a task, or resume a suspended task.
NOTE If you used a Sysprep customization specification to customize the linked clones when you created
the desktop pool, new SIDs might be generated for the recomposed virtual machines. For details, see
"Recomposing Linked Clones Customized with Sysprep" in the Setting Up Desktop and Application Pools in
View document.
Updating Linked Clones with Recomposition
In a recomposition, you can provide operating system patches, install or update applications, or modify the
virtual machine hardware settings in all the linked clones in a desktop pool.
To recompose linked-clone virtual machines, you update the parent virtual machine in vCenter Server or
select a different virtual machine to become the new parent. Next, you take a snapshot of the new parent
virtual machine configuration.
You can change the parent virtual machine without affecting the linked clones because they are linked to the
replica, not directly to the parent.
You then initiate the recomposition, selecting the snapshot to be used as the new base image for the desktop
pool. View Composer creates a new replica, copies the reconfigured OS disk to the linked clones, and
anchors the linked clones to the new replica.
The recomposition also refreshes the linked clones, reducing the size of their OS disks.
Chapter 7 Managing Linked-Clone Desktop Virtual Machines
VMware, Inc. 129