Omnissa Horizon Term License Expiry

August 11, 2024bytheDXT

There’s not a lot of information about what happens when an Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon) term license expires, specifically what end users will and won’t see.

In this post, I will detail what happens when an Omnissa Horizon Term License expires and the messaging that administrators and end users will see.

Starting with Omnissa Horizon 8 release 2111, all term licenses have a 30-day grace period. During the grace period, everything works normally.

Administrator Messaging

During the 30-day grace period, the Horizon Administrator Console presents an orange banner message to administrators. The message says, “Your license has expired and your service may be disrupted as a result. To renew, contact your sales representative.”

Messaging to administrators when Horizon is expired and the grace period is active

Things become disruptive after the 30-day grace period as end users can no longer use Horizon.

The orange banner message in the Horizon Administrator Console changes to red and now says, “Your license has expired and your service has been disrupted. To renew, contact your sales representative.”

If you browse to Settings > Product Licensing and Usage in the Horizon Administrator Console, you will see that the license has been removed.

Messaging to administrators when Horizon is fully expired

End User Messaging

During the grace period, end users will have no idea that the Horizon license has expired and is in the 30-day grace period. However, after the 30-day grace period ends, the end users will start seeing messages after they log in that Horizon has expired and can’t be used. The exact wording is slightly different depending on which Horizon client they are using.

HTML Client

The Horizon HTML client presents the following error message to the end users: “Error Horizon Connection Server License key has expired. Please contact the system administrator.”

Desktop Client

The Horizon desktop client presents the following error message to the end users: “Authentication Failed Horizon Connection Server License key has expired. Please contact the system administrator.”

Mobile Client

The Horizon mobile app presents the following error message to the end users: “Error Horizon Connection Server License key has expired. Please contact the system system administrator. Please check it and try again.”