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VMware Home Lab Tokens
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VMware by Broadcom has now enabled home labs to generate tokens and license VCF 9.

Before the change, when you passed a VCP VCF exam, you were eligible for vSphere 8 and VCF 5.2 license keys, but you couldn’t create any tokens, which prevented you from using VCF 9 beyond the 90-day trial.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to generate a Broadcom token you can use in your home lab.

Prerequisites

  • VMUG Advantage subscription.
  • Pass a VCP VCF exam.

If you need help studying for the VCP VCF Admin exam, my blog post Passing VCP-VCF Admin Exam goes into detail on how I passed.

  • Complete the home lab licensing process.

My blog post, VMware Home Lab Licensing, goes into detail.

The Process

  • Using the same account you used to complete the home lab licensing process, log in to the Broadcom Support portal https://support.broadcom.com/
  • You will get a message that additional verification is required. Click Yes.
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I Went to Workplace Ninjas US 2025
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I recently had the opportunity to attend the very first Workplace Ninjas US conference, which took place in Dallas, Texas, USA, on December 9th and December 10th 2025.

If you’ve never heard of Workplace Ninjas, it is a community of IT professionals focused on Microsoft technologies used in the workplace. Workplace Ninjas US is the US chapter of Workplace Ninjas.

I was very excited to attend Workplace Ninjas US, as this was their first event, and it was the very first Microsoft focused multi-day conference I’ve attended, and many of the presenters are people I follow on social media.

In this post, I will recap my experience at Workplace Ninjas US 2025.

Day 0

My Workplace Ninjas US adventure started on December 8th with a flight from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, directly to Dallas, Texas, USA. I arrived in Dallas around 10 AM local time. Fortunately, even though I was super early, I was able to check into the hotel. The hotel I was staying at was The Highland Dallas. I ended up with room number 403.

Hotel room 403.

Room number 403 is funny to me, since one of Alberta’s area codes is 403, and it’s the forbidden HTTP status code.

On day 0, a hackathon was taking place offsite at Westlake Brewing Company. I made my way to the hackathon to check it out and meet up with a few of my friends. It was really cool to see all the different teams competing in the hackathon.

Workplace Ninjas US 2025 hackathon with friends.

While at the hackathon, I checked in and got my event badge.

Workplace Ninjas US 2025 badge.

Day 1

The first official day of Workplace Ninjas US started with a keynote session where ninjas showed off their ninja skills, which was pretty cool to see. After the ninjas, the keynote kicked off with a presentation by Jason Roszak. Jason spoke about some of the changes coming to Intune and what’s new. One of the biggest announcements recently is that the Intune suite license will be split into the Microsoft E3 and E5 products in 2026. I am very excited about this change, as it will give many customers and me access to new tools.

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Configure locked.properties for Omnissa Horizon
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In this post, I will show you, step by step, how to configure the locked.properties file for Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon) to work with the Omnissa UAG (Unified Access Gateway).

The Omnissa Horizon locked.properties file is a key component of Horizon’s functionality and security.

When the locked.properties file is not configured correctly, Horizon may not start or may be less secure. It can also result in the 421 Unknown error message or the Failed to connect to the Connection Server error message.

An incorrectly configured locked.properties file can cause the Horizon admin page to fail to load and can display the error message Page failed to load. Please refresh the browser to reload the page, and the domain name may not populate.

Prerequisites

  • A UAG configured to use Horizon.

If you need to configure your UAG to work with Horizon, my blog post Configure Omnissa UAG with Omnissa Horizon covers how to do so.

  • Hostnames and FQDNs (or IPs) of your UAG.
  • Hostnames and FQDNs (or IPs) of your Horizon connection server.
  • FQDN that end users connect to.

The Process

  • Connect to your Horizon connection server.
  • Browse to C:\Program Files\Omnissa\Horizon\Server\sslgateway\conf\

On the VMware branded version of Horizon, the path will be C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\sslgateway\conf.

  • Open the locked.properties file in Notepad.

If you need to create the locked.properties file, my blog post Omnissa Horizon locked.properties Settings covers how to make the locked.properties file.

  • Configure the balancedHost setting.

The value for the balanced host setting should be the external FQDN URL that users connect to. You should configure this value regardless of whether a load balancer is in use.

In my example, to connect to Horizon, users use the FQDN horizon.thedxt.ca. I will add the line balancedHost=horizon.thedxt.ca to the locked.properties file.

If your users connect to more than one FQDN or load balancer, you can enter multiple balancedHost entries by adding .Number to it.

Example

balancedHost.1=horizon.thedxt.ca
balancedHost.2=horizon-test.thedxt.ca

  • Configure the portalHost setting.

The value for the portal host setting should be the FQDN and hostname of your UAG and Horizon connection server.

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Configure Omnissa UAG with Omnissa Horizon
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In this post, I will show you step by step how to configure the Omnissa UAG (Unified Access Gateway) to work with Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon).

Prerequisites

  • Horizon connection server installed.

If you need to learn how, my post Install Horizon Connection Server details all the steps.

  • Horizon connection server with a certificate installed.
  • Horizon connection server certificate thumbprint.

If you need to learn how, my post Install Omnissa Horizon Connection Server Certificate details all the steps.

  • UAG deployed.

If you need to learn how, my post Deploy Omnissa UAG on VMware vCenter details all the steps.

The Process

  • Log in to the UAG.
  • Select Configure Manually.
  • Click the Edge Service Settings toggle to view the settings.
  • Click the gear icon next to Horizon Settings.
  • Click the toggle to Enable Horizon to view the Horizon settings.
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Omnissa Horizon locked.properties Settings
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The Omnissa Horizon locked.properties file feels like the best worst-kept secret.

The Horizon locked.properties file allows you to change many settings that aren’t accessible from the main Horizon admin interface.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to create and configure the locked.properties file, along with all the settings I’ve found that can be configured.

Create locked.properties

By default, the locked.properties file does not exist.

  • Connect to your Horizon connection server.
  • Browse to C:\Program Files\Omnissa\Horizon\Server\sslgateway\conf\

If you are still using a VMware branded version of Horizon, the path will be C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\sslgateway\conf.

  • Copy the settings.properties file and rename it to locked.properties

This is done to make sure the file is ASCII, as the part of Horizon that reads the locked.properties file requires it to be in ASCII.

  • Open the locked.properties in Notepad and delete all its contents.
  • Save the empty locked.properties file.
  • Edit your locked.properties file as needed.

Once completed, go to the section Apply locked.properties Changes.

locked.properties Settings

The locked.properties file works by having one line per setting. On each line, the first item is the setting you want to change, followed by the = symbol (you can add spaces around the = symbol if you want). After the = symbol, you enter what you want the setting changed to.

An example would be if I wanted to change a setting named superFun and I wanted it to be set to Always. I would enter that as superFun=Always or superFun = Always.

Many of the settings that can be changed support multiple values. When the setting supports various values, it is represented as a numbered list starting at 1.

An example would be if the setting superFun supported a list, and I wanted to define multiple values, it would be entered as follows.

superFun.1=Friday
superFun.2=Saturday

There is no single source for all the settings in the locked.properties file. Each of the settings are scattered throughout Omnissa’s documentation.

Please use caution when changing the locked.properties settings, as some changes can make your Horizon setup less secure.

Below are all the locked.properties settings I’ve found.

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Deploy Omnissa UAG on VMware vCenter
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Deploying the Omnissa UAG (Unified Access Gateway) on VMware vCenter can be a daunting task if you’ve never done it before.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to deploy the Omnissa Horizon UAG on VMware vCenter.

The Process

  • Download the UAG OVA from Omnissa.
  • Right-click in VMware vCenter on the cluster or host you want to deploy the UAG to, and click on Deploy OVF Template.
  • Select Local file, click Upload Files, select the UAG OVA you downloaded, then click Next.
  • Give the VM name that will be displayed in vCenter, select where you want the UAG VM deployed in your vCenter, and click Next.

In my example, I will name it DXT-HO-UAG01 and select the location named Datacenter.

  • Select the cluster or host where you want to run the UAG VM, then click Next.

In my example, I will select my G10 cluster.

  • Review the details and click Next.

You may get a certificate not trusted warning message. You can click ignore, or resolve this warning message by following the steps in my blog post, VMware vCenter OVA Certificate Trust.

  • Select the deployment configuration for your environment and click Next.

The most common deployment option is Single NIC.

In my example, I will use a Single NIC deployment.

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VMware vCenter OVA Certificate Trust
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Typically, importing an OVA or OVF file is straightforward. However, after VMware vCenter version 7.0 Update 2, a new message began appearing when importing an OVA or OVF file. The message would say that the certificate is not trusted.

Technically speaking, you could click ignore and keep going. However, I didn’t want to do that.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to resolve the certificate is not trusted warning without clicking ignore.

The Process

Make sure you only follow this process on an OVA file you’ve received from a trusted source and that you’ve verified its authenticity.

  • Open the OVA file with a program like 7-Zip.

An OVA is technically a tar archive, which is why we can view its contents with most zip programs.

  • Extract the .cert file from the OVA file.
  • Rename the .cert file to .cer.
  • Click Yes to confirm the file name extension rename.
  • Open the .cer file.
  • Click on the Certification Path tab.
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Install VMware ESX
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The first time you install VMware ESXi might feel a bit daunting. Once you’ve done it at least once, the process is very straightforward.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to install VMware ESX.

Prerequisites

  • ESX install ISO.
  • ESX host time zone set to UTC.
  • A password for the root user.

The Process

  • Boot off the ESX install ISO.
  • Press Enter to confirm you want to move ahead with the ESXi Installer.
  • Press F11 to accept the EULA and move ahead with the ESX installation.
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VMware Home Lab Licensing
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One of many advantages of passing the VCP-VCF (VMware Certified Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation) exam is that you can get access to home lab licensing. The license is valid for 365 days and can be used in non-production environments. An extra bonus is that if you also happen to have a VMUG Advantage subscription, you can renew the licensing for another 2 years.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to get your VMware home lab licensing after passing a VMware qualifying exam.

The Process

  • To start, you need to pass the VCP-VCF exam. If you haven’t passed it yet, I’ve created the blog post, Passing VCP-VCF Admin Exam, which covers what I did to pass my VCP-VCF Admin exam.
  • Once you pass the exam, you will receive an email letting you know that you are eligible for home lab licenses.
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Minisforum MS-A2 Disable TPM
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The Minisforum MS-A2 is an awesome system to use in a home lab. It does have one downside, and that is that even though it has a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 chip, it is a TPM 2.0 CRB (Command-Response buffer) chip, which is likely useful for a lot of use cases. However, it is not compatible with VMware ESXi. VMware ESXi requires a TPM 2.0 FIFO (First-In-First-Out) chip. Fortunately, you can disable the TPM.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to disable the TPM on a Minisforum MS-A2.

The Process

  • Get into BIOS by pressing the Del key.
  • Select Setup.
  • Select the Advanced menu.
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