We're excited to announce that Update Rollup 1.2 for Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 is now available for download on the Download Center and through Windows Update. As a quick reminder, an update rollup is a cumulative set of hotfixes, security patches, critical updates, and other updates that are packaged together for easier deployment. This update contains fixes for a couple of crashes and improves overall system stability.

You can download the Update Rollup directly from the Microsoft Download Center here..

Note: Questions and comments are welcome. However, please DO NOT post a request for troubleshooting by using the comment tool at the end of this post. Instead, post a new thread in the Multipoint Server Forum. Thank you!

We're excited to announce today that the long-awaited Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Deployment Guide is now available for download! This document contains walks you through the steps needed to fully configure and deploy a Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 system and contains important information about:

• Hardware considerations for WMS 2012
• Installation and activation
• Licensing
• Adding user accounts
• Creating VDI stations
• Configuring the Disk Protection feature
• Applying group policies for domain users
• And much more!

You can download the Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Deployment Guide here.

If you are looking for information about planning a MultiPoint 2012 site installation, you can find the Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Planning Guide on the Microsoft Library here.

Note: Questions and comments are welcome. However, please DO NOT post a request for troubleshooting by using the comment tool at the end of this post. Instead, post a new thread in the Multipoint Server Forum. Thank you!

My name is Livi and I'm one of the Program Managers working on Windows MultiPoint Server. Today, we're excited to announce that Update Rollup 2 for Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 is now available for download through Windows Update. This update includes several fixes and performance enhancements, including:

• Performance enhancements when launching the MultiPoint Manager or WMS Dashboard
• Optimization of handling zero-client disconnects and error handling for MultiPoint Connector installations
• Improved reliability of local stations and virtual desktop creation
• Support for additional peripheral devices for stations

You can view more information about the update here.

Note: Questions and comments are welcome. However, please DO NOT post a request for troubleshooting by using the comment tool at the end of this post. Instead, post a new thread in the Multipoint Server Forum. Thank you!

• The Windows 8 desktop experience (students love it)
• Private local chat with users (teachers love it)
• Remote control of user keyboard and mouse
• Disk protection to undo system changes on every reboot

In addition, this version integrates with vSpace management tools to manage up to thousands of devices. You can learn more about the new NComputing offerings here.

If you are using WMS 2012 to orchestrate Windows 7 or Windows 8 PCs:

1)      Once you have installed UR1 on the WMS host navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows MultiPoint Server and grab a copy of the Connector folder.

2)      Uninstall the MultiPoint Connector from the client machines or your golden client image: Start Screen -> type “add remove” -> find Add or Remove Programs under Settings -> select Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Connector and click Uninstall.

3)      Put the Connector folder anywhere in your master client image, or add it to each machine. Open the folder and double click on the WmsConnector application at the bottom. You will need administrator privileges.

See Managing PCs and Tablets for a refresher on MultiPoint Connector setup.

If you are using WMS 2012 with Virtual Desktop templates (VDI):

1)      Install UR1 on the host

2)      Import your template to copy it to a new name from the Virtual Desktops tab

3)      Customize your template:

uninstall MultiPoint Connector:

Start Screen -> type “add remove” -> find Add or Remove Programs under Settings -> select Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Connector and click Uninstall.

navigate to the \\<your WMS host PC name>\Connector\ folder and run WmsConnector.exe to install the new connector

(Update April 12, 2013) reboot the template. We explain why this may be important over on the forum: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsmultipointserver/thread/35514304-ca37-4e1f-af24-5994cb75efa7

4)      complete customization

5)      recreate stations from the new template

See Virtual Desktop Templates Part 2 for a refresher on customizing Virtual Desktop Templates.

Website - www.microsoft.com/multipoint has been refreshed for WMS 2012, highlighting new scenarios such as orchestrating Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs.

Download – aka.ms/WMS2012Eval has a 180 day trial version of WMS 2012 Premium that can be converted to perpetual product with a purchased Volume Licensing key.

Update Rollup 1 – is available for download at aka.ms/WMS2012UR1.

Zero Client drivers – evaluation drivers for USB and USB-over-Ethernet connected devices are at aka.ms/WMS2012Drivers .

Videos – www.youtube.com/msmultipoint has been updated with 5 new feature demos:

• MultiPoint Manager
• MultiPoint Dashboard
• Disk Protection
• Virtual Desktops
• Deployment Options

Or play all five as a playlist!

For a deeper dive there is a 60-minute presentation by our own Clark Nicholson at https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/WSV202

This blog – www.aka.ms/WMSBlog has a number of how-to WMS 2012 feature posts:

• Teacher / Student Instant Messaging with MultiPoint Server 2012
• Managing PCs and Tablets with MultiPoint Server 2012
• What’s New in the MultiPoint Server 2012 Dashboard
• Disk Protection
• Virtual Desktop Templates – Part 1 & Part 2

The WMS 2012 Planning Guide has been published here (now updated with all WMS languages) and the 2012 Deployment Guide will be published in March 2013 at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=278910   

Our product support site does not yet reference WMS 2012 explicitly, but all the information there is equally relevant to WMS 2012.

You can find answers to most questions in the 400+ threads on the WMS Forum

Also, follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Enjoy!

This is one of the biggest feature additions in WMS 2012 over WMS2011. Through the Instant Messaging (IM) feature, students will now be able to privately send a message to the teacher. We thought that this feature could help situations where a student has a question to ask but might be embarrassed to raise his hand and ask it in front of the whole class. Or in cases where a teacher wants to answer students’ questions without needing to walk all the way to their desks. IM enables interaction and better classroom orchestration through MultiPoint Dashboard. IM messages are meant to be short-lived and no chat history is stored on the computer. This feature is for one-to-one conversations between teacher and student, student-to-student messaging is not supported.

I have tried to explain how the feature works in two parts below, student initiating a chat with teacher and vice-versa. In these examples the teacher is Sara and the student is Ray.

1.   Student initiating IM with teacher

1.1 Student logged in after teacher is logged in

Sara is already logged in and has the MultiPoint Dashboard running. When Ray logs in, the chat window will already be available and minimized on his task bar.

For Ray to initiate a chat, he clicks on this icon on the task bar to open the chat window. The title of the window will have the name of the teacher that he is conversing with.

At this point, Ray can get the teacher’s attention by typing any (or no) message and clicking the “Send” button. These messages will be received by Sara:

1.       On the dashboard: The new or latest message will be highlighted and shown beneath Ray’s thumbnail as shown below:

2.       On Ray’s chat window, if already open on Sara’s session, in addition to the highlighted message beneath the thumbnail, the chat window will show the full message from Ray
 

If this chat window was minimized on Sara’s session, the chat window icon on windows taskbar will be highlighted and blinking with any new incoming message from Ray.

1.1.1 Teacher replying to a student’s message

For (1) above, Sara sees the indication from Ray’s thumbnail that she has received a new message from him. Since the chat window with Ray is not already opened, Sara selects Ray’s thumbnail, and right clicks to select “IM Selected Desktop User”.  Alternatively once Sara has selected Ray’s thumbnail she could click the Send button in the ribbon IM group.

A new chat window will open, whose title will indicate who she is conversing with. She can then continue messaging from that window.

For scenario (2) above, Sara sees the chat window on the task blinking with Ray’s new message. She simply clicks on it to bring the window to the front and responds.

1.2 Student logged in before the teacher is

Since there is no teacher logged in yet, the student will not see any chat windows on their (Windows) taskbar. However, once the teacher logs in and starts running MPD, a chat window pertaining to that teacher will be automatically opened (but minimized) and seen on the taskbar.

1.3 Teacher unavailable for chat while student is logged in

If Sara closes MPD or logs off while Ray is still logged in, Ray will see an error when attempting to send a message.

However when Sara re-opens her MPD or logs in back, IM is now possible again and thus, Ray is notified of this on his IM window 

Note:

• Students won’t be able to close the chat window. Clicking on its red X button will result in the window being minimized, but not closed. This was a conscious decision to enable them getting back to the chat history in cases where teacher could have a solution to an issue and students can quickly refer back to this conversation in case they encounter the issue again
• Chat history will not be available for the student after they log off
• Students can continue to message the teacher even when the teacher’s session is disconnected or suspended.

2.     Teacher initiating IM with student

Just as explained in Section 1.1.1, the teacher can also initiate a chat conversation with a student in the same way. It’s as simple as Sara clicking on Ray’s thumbnail, then on Send (IM) button, type in a message and hit Send. If the chat window on the student is minimized or not in the foreground, in order to bring the student’s attention to the teacher’s message, the chat window is automatically brought to the foreground. This way the student can respond/reply without having to constantly monitor their chat windows.

2.1 If student logs off

When a student logs off, the chat window on the teacher’s desktop pertaining to that student shows a message that the student has logged off. The Send button and the message box are also grayed out

Note: This window is now orphaned. When Ray logs back in and a chat is initiated, it will always open a new chat window on the teacher’s desktop. To avoid any confusion, it is always suggested to close any such orphaned windows, if present, once students log off.

Note:

• Teachers can continue to message students who are disconnected or suspended.
• Once the teacher closes a chat window, the history is gone. Re-opening the window by clicking on Send (IM) button to continue messaging will open a fresh window (no previous messages will be available on this)

3. Notifications

This feature has been added to make sure teachers and students pay attention to incoming messages as and when they arrive.

 Whenever a new message is received:

• On a WMS session Start screen or on Windows 8 running the MultiPoint Connector, there is a toast notification on the top-right corner of the desktop with the message.

• On Windows 7, the same appears as a balloon notification on the windows taskbar

UR1 is available by running Windows Update.

Please see our blog post for an overview of WMS 2012 Zero Client Solutions and which drivers are appropriate for your zero client device.

https://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_in_education/archive/2013/02/08/windows-multipoint-server-in-the-classroom.aspx  

One of the exciting changes of Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 is a new zero client plug-in architecture that can greatly improve the user experience.

Compared to the video graphics extension model of WMS 2011 this:

• provides a more responsive and fluid user experience
• increases system stability and compatibility
• removes 14 zero client station limit

Note:  Even with the 14 zero client limit removed, other factors such as client load, server size and number of USB ports still affect the number of zero client stations a WMS server can support.  Refer here for sizing guidelines.

There are two kinds of zero clients:

• USB attached
• Network attached (also known as USB over Ethernet, since to the WMS server they appear as a virtual network USB hub)

WMS 2012 Update Rollup 1 (KB2791647) should be installed prior to installing these drivers.  It is available now from the Download Center and will eventually be distributed as part of Windows Update.

Three main chip-set manufacturers provide chips for WMS zero clients.   You will need different WMS 2012 zero client drivers based on the type of zero client device you have.

Here is an overview of some of the zero client solutions available for WMS 2012: 

DisplayLink chip-set devices

 Drivers are now available for these common devices from OSBASE:

• Atrust m200 series
• HP MultiSeat T100 and T150 Thin Clients
• LG N195WU and N225WU Monitors

 Plugable technology makes DisplayLink based zero clients bundled with the OSBASE technology easily orderable through Amazon.

Magic Control Technology (MCT) chip-set devices

MCT produces a variety of USB and Network attached WMS zero client devices under their name and a variety of OEMs such as Dell Wyse.

Drivers for the following devices are available from MCT or the vendor you purchased the device from. 

• MWS8840
• MWS8820
• MWS400UL 
• Dell Wyse E00
• Dell Wyse E01
• Dell Wyse E02

Standard Microsystems Corp (SMSC a wholly owned subsidiary of Microchip Inc.) chip-set devices

SMSC provides their chip set to a variety of OEMs who produce zero clients such as Atrust, Acer, Centerm, and HP.

SMSC USB Zero Client Drivers for the following devices are available from the manufacturers:

• Atrust m300
• Atrust m302
• Atrust m320 (When USB attached, otherwise requires Atrust USB-Over-Ethernet driver)
• HP T200 (When USB attached, otherwise requires HP USB-Over-Ethernet driver)
• Acer E400
• Acer U400
• Acer U200
• ViewSonic VMA25

SMSC Atrust USB-Over-Ethernet Zero Client Drivers for the following devices are available from Atrust:

• Atrust m320

SMSC HP USB-Over-Ethernet Zero Client Drivers for the following devices are available from SMSC:

• HP T200

Centerm Zero Client Drivers for the following devices are available directly from Centerm.

• Centerm C75