Why we need IT pros: Windows 7 patch breaks VMware View Client

According to a VMware Knowledge Base article, a couple of recent Windows 7 patches stop clients from working in VMware view. This has gotten more media attention than I think it deserves (so here’s a little more from me…)—from a technical standpoint, it’s pretty minor. VMware already has a solution available and even if you’re affected by the bug, you won’t lose any data or see any permanent damage.

To me this problem is interesting because it makes a good case for the importance of companies having IT pros who know their environment, know the products their companies use, and know the basic tenets of  IT. In this case, even basic testing before the patches were deployed would easily have noted the problem. If the patches got deployed without testing, an IT pro would know to check the VMware and Microsoft knowledge bases.

I hear stories fairly often from IT pros who’re concerned about outsourcing and staff cuts. I think this is the kind of story they should be collecting. If your company’s computers are being looked after by nameless, faceless outsourcing companies that don’t know your systems inside and out, they might not know that one small but vital department uses VMware View and fail to test Windows patches against it.