Horizon 8 2212 is an Extended Service Branch (ESB). Approximately once a year, VMware designates one VMware Horizon release as an Extended Service Branch (ESB). An ESB is a parallel release branch to the existing Current Releases (CR) of the product. By choosing to deploy an ESB, customers receive periodic service packs (SP) updates, which include cumulative critical bug fixes and security fixes. Most importantly, there are no new features in the SP updates, so customers can rely on a stable Horizon platform for their critical deployments. For more information on the ESB and the Horizon versions that have been designated an ESB , see VMware Knowledge Base (KB) article 86477.

VMware Horizon 8 version 2212 includes the following new features and enhancements.

• Virtual Desktops and Applications
  • Horizon 8 version 2212 in conjunction with App Volumes 4 version 2212 introduces Horizon Published Apps on Demand.  With this new feature, administrators can use App Volumes applications directly in their instant-clone RDS farms.  Now applications can be delivered dynamically to a generic Windows OS as users launch them. This greatly simplifies static image management and gives administrators the ability to reduce their application specific farms. This also brings the Horizon and App Volumes administration consoles closer together, allowing Horizon administrators to add App Volumes Manager servers and entitle applications to users without the need for duplicate entitlements in App Volumes. This feature creates an opportunity to reduce the time-consuming management of application installations on RDS Farms, and enables scenarios such as multiple users being able to use different versions of the same application while logged in to the same RDS Server.
  • Microsoft MAK licenses are now supported with Instant Clones.
  • For vTPM-enabled Instant Clone desktop pools, Horizon previously always used Mode A provisioning (Instant Clones with Parent VM) due to a bug in older ESXi versions. With the resolution of this bug, Horizon now also supports Mode B provisioning (Instant Clones without Parent VM) for vTPM-enabled desktop pools if all hosts in the cluster are running ESXi 7.0 Update 3f or later with Horizon 8 version 2212 or later.
  • When you create an automated pool of full clone desktops, you can now specify an active directory OU in which computer accounts can be created. Previously, computer accounts would get created in the default OU and administrators would manually move them after pool creation. This feature, which already exists for Instant Clone desktop pools, addresses this pain point for administrators.
  • Improved GPU performance on Physical Machines running Windows Server 2022 with Horizon Indirect Display Driver based setup.
  • The network settings for a create Instant Clone pool or farm workflow are now set to the network settings of a golden image instead of a snapshot. This simplifies management for administrators as they only have to keep track of network settings of a golden image rather than many of its snapshots. 
• Horizon Connection Server
  • Horizon 8 now supports a maximum of 500 Virtual Machines per ESXi host when using non-vSAN storage.  The achievable maximum depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. See VMware Configuration Maximums for all Horizon Configuration Maximums.
  • Cloud Pod Architecture is supported with IPv6 environments for more security and added address spaces.
  • Administrators can now generate a CSR configuration file, import a CA-signed certificate to Connection Server, and monitor health of the certificate from Horizon Console.
• Horizon Agent for Windows
  • The Horizon Agent for Windows has been migrated from Azul OpenJDK to BellSoft OpenJDK.
• Horizon Agent for Linux
  • This release adds support for the following Linux distributions.
    • Debian 10.13 and 11.5
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Workstation 8.7 and 9.1
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 8.7 and 9.1
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 15 SP4
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 SP4
  • This release supports the MATE desktop environment on desktops running RHEL 7.9.
  • Beginning with this release, the following Linux distributions are no longer supported.
    • RHEL Workstation 7.8 and earlier, 8.5, 8.3 and earlier
    • RHEL Server 7.8
    • CentOS 7.8 and earlier
    • SLED/SLES 12 SP3 and 15 SP2
  • The Horizon Agent for Linux has been migrated from Azul OpenJDK to BellSoft OpenJDK.
• Horizon ClientFor information about new features in a Horizon Client, including HTML Access, see the release notes for that client.
• General
  • You can now enable or disable TrueSSO Trigger Mode in the add or edit SAML Authenticator workflow on the Horizon Console.
  • All Horizon Console grids can persist hide/unhide column preferences.
  • Horizon Console login username and domain can be persisted in browser storage.
  • Horizon administrators with Smartcard bypass privilege can authenticate and consume APIs even if connection server mandates Smartcard authentication.
  • Horizon 8 has been tested to work with Microsoft Defender Endpoint. 
• Horizon RESTful APIsNew RESTful APIs and new versions of existing RESTful APIs have been added to help in automation for customer deployments. To get the latest documentation for the Horizon RESTful APIs:
  1. Install or Upgrade to the latest released version of Connection Server.
  2. Navigate to https://<CS-IP//FQDN>rest/swagger-ui.html from any browser.
  3. Click Select a spec from the top right of the browser. Select Latest to see the latest version of APIs. Select Default to view all versions of all APIs.

Horizon 8 API

For the latest set of Horizon 8 APIs, see the VMware Horizon API and navigate to the current release in the drop down.  Click on the Documentation tab for more details and examples on how to use the API.

Horizon Cloud Connector

Applicable to customers with VMware Horizon Universal Subscription, Horizon Enterprise Plus Subscription, Horizon Standard Plus Subscription, Horizon Apps Universal Subscription, or Horizon Apps Standard Subscription.

The Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance is a required component for VMware Horizon 8 to support the management of Horizon pods using Horizon Cloud Service.

Horizon 8 Deployed on Public Cloud SDDCs

You can select Azure as an installation option to deploy Horizon 8 on Azure VMware Solution (AVS). See Deploying VMware Horizon 8 on Azure VMware Solution.

For a list of VMware Horizon 8 features supported on VMware Cloud on AWS, see VMware Knowledge Base article 58539.

For a list of VMware Horizon 8 features supported on Google Cloud VMware Engine, see VMware Knowledge Base article 81922.

For a list of VMware Horizon 8 features supported on Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, see VMware Knowledge Base article 88202.